Church nerds among you might recognize the second half of the prayer as the ancient didache eucharistic prayer. We added an introduction to connect with our first liturgical season, God's creation of the universe.
Out of the dirt of the garden, God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food and The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden. And God made us out of the dirt and gave us the garden to delight in and to take care of. And God so loved it all that God joined us in creation, was made out of the same dirt. And asked that through simple things of the earth—bread, wine, a shared meal—we lift our hearts and our hands to God as we remember the life Jesus led, the people he touched, the meals he ate, and the sacrifice he made. A reminder about communion: all may, some should, none must. Much of this ritual is about the gathered community, so when you pass the bread and wine, please continue to say the words to the next person whether you take the bread and wine or not.
[concerning the wine] We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant; to you be the glory for ever.
[concerning the bread] We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you made known to us through Jesus your servant; to you be the glory for ever. Even as the grains of wheat were scattered over the hills, and were gathered together to become one bread, so let your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
tomorrow's sermon--Acts 20:32-35
Baruch attah adonai elohenu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of eternity. Amen.
* * *
Welcome to week two of stewardship at Good Shepherd.
There are a ton of illustrations for sermons available online
for stewardship season
—object lessons that show you simply and clearly
why tithing is important and doable,
illustrations which would bring every one of you to your knees
with the blinding truth of God’s love,
illustrations which would have you opening your wallets and
handing over everything for the work of the Kingdom! A-men?
Or, at least, that’s what they’d have you think.
There are jokes about ministers and horses and desert islands,
there are prop-related illustrations
that involve things like a mason jar with a few Ping-Pong balls
and some sand which, when I saw it done,
was cheesy but effective.
There are thousands of these things available,
because we in the church have realized
how difficult it is to talk about money in an engaging way.
We’re all a bit jealous of our time and our money.
I know I have a hard time thinking Leighton and I will be able
to cover our bills and things
if we give more money to the church.
And, if you don’t have the experience of Good Shepherd
as a joy-filled place that feeds your soul
for ministry in the world,
no sermon illustration ever will make you open your wallet.
Before Leighton and I had our delightful daughter Abby,
before we were even considering having kids, we had a pretty good life.
We worked and we made art and we gardened
and we went out with friends.
We watched movies and TV, we talked politics,
and there never seemed to be enough time
for everything we wanted to do.
As we considered having a child,
we became fearful of how much time we would lose.
Children, wonderful creatures that they are,
take a lot of time to care for and play with.
Where would that time come from?
How would we continue doing all the things we had come to love
and still take care of this child?
Those of you who are parents know well how much your focus shifts
when you hold that baby in your arms
—often, we can’t even remember what we did
to fill the hours we now spend with Abby.
Some of the stuff you did before stays around,
but much of it gets put in your spiritual attic
and, while you miss it, you don’t miss it much,
because you have this amazing, overwhelmingly beautiful,
intriguing, endlessly changing
new relationship in your life.
The sacrifice of something you love
brings to town an even deeper love.
Do you get it?
This is so much bigger than the annual stewardship campaign.
This is the heart of the Gospel that Peter speaks of in today’s Acts reading,
that Jesus spent his life getting folks to see
—that this faith we profess is about a joyful relationship
which is so much better than we can imagine
when standing outside of it.
Clinging to our stuff or our time leads only
to a narrower, more pinched life,
but holding it all loosely,
offering our stuff, our time, our selves to one another in the church
expands our lives, allows us room to breathe in,
allows space for the Spirit to transform us.
Last week we talked about how we see the world
through a lens of scarcity
while God sees the world through a lens of abundance.
We talked about how this faith we profess is about celebration,
about how church should be and is a party.
Let me give you some examples:
Way back in the day,
when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem,
the Ark of the Covenant which contained the Law of God
given to Moses
and which was so wonderfully holy that it might indeed
have melted Nazi faces (Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?),
the Ark of the Covenant which was to be placed
in the brand-new Temple as a footstool for God,
when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem,
all the Jews partied and David, greatest King of Israel,
stripped down to just his shorts, and danced.
He danced so passionately, with such devotion and love,
that his wife was embarrassed. He was that happy.
And even farther back in the day,
when the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea
after fleeing slavery in Egypt,
when the Israelites had made it safely
between two enormous, terrifying walls of water,
when the Israelites truly saw the mighty, freeing power
of their God,
one of their leaders, Moses’ sister Miriam,
sang her relief and joy to have survived the crossing,
she and the women took tambourines and lyres
and danced around the camp in exultation.
Brother Paul wrote his gratitude and pleasure in God
even while still in prison.
In Hebrews 12, he all but shouts,
“Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom!
And do you see how thankful we must be?
Not only thankful, but brimming with worship,
deeply reverent before God.”
And Jesus exclaimed over God’s generosity,
shouting his joy that the meek and persecuted
and peacemakers would receive abundant life!
All because they saw the depth and power and good news
of God our Maker.
And so we at Good Shepherd are asking something small of you
we are asking for a 1% increase in your current pledge out of joy
My husband Leighton and I have increased our pledge
We’re now giving a huge 6%!
That’s not very big, is it?
On the other hand, it’s only been recently
that we’ve made a regular pledge at all
a few years ago
I did a little math and was embarrassed to discover
Our pledge was less than 1% of our income
And I thought we were so close to a tithe, 10%
So I figured out 2% and sent in the card
this year, 5%, next year, 6%, and after, maybe as high as 7%
I mean this in all seriousness
Increasing a pledge to the church can seem huge,
Even by a single, small percentage point
like that time before you have a kid
and you can’t imagine how you’ll manage
But ask yourself
Why does Good Shepherd matter?
Why does this community, here and now, matter to you and to the world?
What life of celebration have you discovered here?
What makes you want to dance with joy?
Have you made friends and connections here
you couldn’t somewhere else?
Have you reached out to someone who needed it?
Have you had someone from the Stephen Ministry
or the food-making ministry show up at your door?
Or received a card in the mail?
Have you talked with someone very different than yourself?
Has this community made an impact on your life?
Why does Good Shepherd matter to you?
Last week, we heard the prophet Ecclesiastes say that
we “will scarcely brood over the days of [our] lives
because God keeps [us] occupied with the joy of [our] hearts.”
And this week, Luke writes in the book of Acts that
the Gospel is “a message that is able to build you up.”
The heart of our community is celebration.
The center of our practice is thanksgiving.
The focus of our lives is love.
later, we’re going to sing a song called “When Love Comes to Town”
—it’s about deep joy in the midst of a broken life,
it’s about God being present in the craziest places
and about love winning out every time.
When love comes to town—when God comes to town—
he won’t be looking for your excuses,
he won’t be wondering how often you’ve been praised
for helping out your fellows
or how well you’ve avoided them,
he won’t be wondering if your theology’s kosher
—mm-umm, no, sir, when love comes to town,
when God comes to town,
he’ll be looking for how we’ve used the gifts we’ve been given,
he’ll be looking for how generously we’ve treated the abused
and the abusers,
he’ll be looking for how we’ve lived out this image of God
we were created in
—mm-hum, yes, sir
love comes to town every day,
God comes to town in every moment
—so you better dance like David and sing like Miriam,
you better write like Paul and shout like Jesus.
And give yourself away like it’s going out of style!
* * *
Welcome to week two of stewardship at Good Shepherd.
There are a ton of illustrations for sermons available online
for stewardship season
—object lessons that show you simply and clearly
why tithing is important and doable,
illustrations which would bring every one of you to your knees
with the blinding truth of God’s love,
illustrations which would have you opening your wallets and
handing over everything for the work of the Kingdom! A-men?
Or, at least, that’s what they’d have you think.
There are jokes about ministers and horses and desert islands,
there are prop-related illustrations
that involve things like a mason jar with a few Ping-Pong balls
and some sand which, when I saw it done,
was cheesy but effective.
There are thousands of these things available,
because we in the church have realized
how difficult it is to talk about money in an engaging way.
We’re all a bit jealous of our time and our money.
I know I have a hard time thinking Leighton and I will be able
to cover our bills and things
if we give more money to the church.
And, if you don’t have the experience of Good Shepherd
as a joy-filled place that feeds your soul
for ministry in the world,
no sermon illustration ever will make you open your wallet.
Before Leighton and I had our delightful daughter Abby,
before we were even considering having kids, we had a pretty good life.
We worked and we made art and we gardened
and we went out with friends.
We watched movies and TV, we talked politics,
and there never seemed to be enough time
for everything we wanted to do.
As we considered having a child,
we became fearful of how much time we would lose.
Children, wonderful creatures that they are,
take a lot of time to care for and play with.
Where would that time come from?
How would we continue doing all the things we had come to love
and still take care of this child?
Those of you who are parents know well how much your focus shifts
when you hold that baby in your arms
—often, we can’t even remember what we did
to fill the hours we now spend with Abby.
Some of the stuff you did before stays around,
but much of it gets put in your spiritual attic
and, while you miss it, you don’t miss it much,
because you have this amazing, overwhelmingly beautiful,
intriguing, endlessly changing
new relationship in your life.
The sacrifice of something you love
brings to town an even deeper love.
Do you get it?
This is so much bigger than the annual stewardship campaign.
This is the heart of the Gospel that Peter speaks of in today’s Acts reading,
that Jesus spent his life getting folks to see
—that this faith we profess is about a joyful relationship
which is so much better than we can imagine
when standing outside of it.
Clinging to our stuff or our time leads only
to a narrower, more pinched life,
but holding it all loosely,
offering our stuff, our time, our selves to one another in the church
expands our lives, allows us room to breathe in,
allows space for the Spirit to transform us.
Last week we talked about how we see the world
through a lens of scarcity
while God sees the world through a lens of abundance.
We talked about how this faith we profess is about celebration,
about how church should be and is a party.
Let me give you some examples:
Way back in the day,
when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem,
the Ark of the Covenant which contained the Law of God
given to Moses
and which was so wonderfully holy that it might indeed
have melted Nazi faces (Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?),
the Ark of the Covenant which was to be placed
in the brand-new Temple as a footstool for God,
when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem,
all the Jews partied and David, greatest King of Israel,
stripped down to just his shorts, and danced.
He danced so passionately, with such devotion and love,
that his wife was embarrassed. He was that happy.
And even farther back in the day,
when the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea
after fleeing slavery in Egypt,
when the Israelites had made it safely
between two enormous, terrifying walls of water,
when the Israelites truly saw the mighty, freeing power
of their God,
one of their leaders, Moses’ sister Miriam,
sang her relief and joy to have survived the crossing,
she and the women took tambourines and lyres
and danced around the camp in exultation.
Brother Paul wrote his gratitude and pleasure in God
even while still in prison.
In Hebrews 12, he all but shouts,
“Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom!
And do you see how thankful we must be?
Not only thankful, but brimming with worship,
deeply reverent before God.”
And Jesus exclaimed over God’s generosity,
shouting his joy that the meek and persecuted
and peacemakers would receive abundant life!
All because they saw the depth and power and good news
of God our Maker.
And so we at Good Shepherd are asking something small of you
we are asking for a 1% increase in your current pledge out of joy
My husband Leighton and I have increased our pledge
We’re now giving a huge 6%!
That’s not very big, is it?
On the other hand, it’s only been recently
that we’ve made a regular pledge at all
a few years ago
I did a little math and was embarrassed to discover
Our pledge was less than 1% of our income
And I thought we were so close to a tithe, 10%
So I figured out 2% and sent in the card
this year, 5%, next year, 6%, and after, maybe as high as 7%
I mean this in all seriousness
Increasing a pledge to the church can seem huge,
Even by a single, small percentage point
like that time before you have a kid
and you can’t imagine how you’ll manage
But ask yourself
Why does Good Shepherd matter?
Why does this community, here and now, matter to you and to the world?
What life of celebration have you discovered here?
What makes you want to dance with joy?
Have you made friends and connections here
you couldn’t somewhere else?
Have you reached out to someone who needed it?
Have you had someone from the Stephen Ministry
or the food-making ministry show up at your door?
Or received a card in the mail?
Have you talked with someone very different than yourself?
Has this community made an impact on your life?
Why does Good Shepherd matter to you?
Last week, we heard the prophet Ecclesiastes say that
we “will scarcely brood over the days of [our] lives
because God keeps [us] occupied with the joy of [our] hearts.”
And this week, Luke writes in the book of Acts that
the Gospel is “a message that is able to build you up.”
The heart of our community is celebration.
The center of our practice is thanksgiving.
The focus of our lives is love.
later, we’re going to sing a song called “When Love Comes to Town”
—it’s about deep joy in the midst of a broken life,
it’s about God being present in the craziest places
and about love winning out every time.
When love comes to town—when God comes to town—
he won’t be looking for your excuses,
he won’t be wondering how often you’ve been praised
for helping out your fellows
or how well you’ve avoided them,
he won’t be wondering if your theology’s kosher
—mm-umm, no, sir, when love comes to town,
when God comes to town,
he’ll be looking for how we’ve used the gifts we’ve been given,
he’ll be looking for how generously we’ve treated the abused
and the abusers,
he’ll be looking for how we’ve lived out this image of God
we were created in
—mm-hum, yes, sir
love comes to town every day,
God comes to town in every moment
—so you better dance like David and sing like Miriam,
you better write like Paul and shout like Jesus.
And give yourself away like it’s going out of style!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
last Sunday's sermon--Colossians 3:1-10
Baruch attah adonai elohenu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of eternity. Amen.
* * *
My husband likes to say he succumbs to the sin of uxoriousness.
That’s the sin of loving your wife more than God.
To which I reply, “thanks?”
Uxoriousness—use it in a sentence today…
This is of course a form of idolatry,
a way to put something else in the place of God,
to make something or someone, in effect, your God.
Lots of things can be idols—golden calves, trophies, a career, money,
…and insert a deeply-felt groan here
because you’ve just realized it’s that time of year again…
It’s time for speeches about how we need your money,
heart-felt speeches saying essentially,
“give it up you tightwads, this stuff ain’t free,
oh and here’s some scripture to make you feel guilty”
that’s right, it’s stewardship season!
So, while we’re being honest about how we feel
about stewardship sermons
let’s be honest about why we don’t give more
—it’s because we come from an attitude of scarcity.
We think we ought to trust God for everything, right?
God’s the Creator and everything,
but what kind of return does God give on a $1000 investment?
What’s the deductible on God’s insurance plan?
No, God’s all right and all, but we need to trust something else,
something tangible or measurable. Something real…
We trust other things, put other things in the place of God
because we don’t think God will be enough
we don’t think there will be enough…whatever…to go around.
Now, I’m not saying we should all stop planning for the future,
but those plans are not God.
That future is usually anything but
what we expect it to be.
It is uncertain and it fills us with fear.
So we plan and worry and save and hoard
and become greedy for what we already have
—God’s promise that it will all be okay
in the end, right? And if it’s not okay…
[it’s not the end]
Here’s an example—
there are two documents in your house,
or on whatever tech device you use,
that will tell me exactly what you care about and what you fear.
They are your credit card statement and your calendar.
One will tell me what you spend your money on
—and what you don’t spend your money on—
and the other what you spend your time on.
These two paint a picture of who you are in the real world,
where your treasure and your heart are.
You might say they’re moral documents
You might say that they show us the idols we worship.
But what does that mean, “the idols we worship”?
What does it mean to worship anything?
Worship is intense devotion of time and energy.
Worship is giving worth—ultimate worth—to something.
Worship shows what comes before anything else in our lives.
Worship involves joy, maybe a tinge of fear, and a sense of awe.
It’s not unlike the devotion we show to sports teams in this town.
Now, I’m not going to lie, my team of choice is amazing
—they go out there and hustle,
they work hard, and they bring home the victory,
so there’s a reason the Cincinnati Rollergirls
are my favorite and that I’ve got tickets
to the next three bouts
—but I don’t worship them.
I used to have very disconcerting conversations
with parents of teenagers
about how their kids couldn’t come to confirmation class
—confirmation class!
Their conscious, adult choice to follow Jesus
Where they’re confirming they’ll try to love God
with all their hearts and souls
and minds and strengths
a class which lasted only 8 weeks—
they couldn’t come because the Bengals were playing
If that isn’t an obvious choice between God and an idol,
I don’t know what is.
No one wants to be called out on idolatry—
it’s uncomfortable, we fight such negative words,
and, really, it’s not us who are the problem
In the Colossians reading today, Paul equates idolatry with being greedy,
and no one wants to be called greedy either…
so we define it away from ourselves.
Greed is something people much richer than we are
have to struggle with.
Greed is extreme, greed is ugly, greed is unnecessary.
We could never be like that.
And this is precisely why folks don’t care for stewardship season—
readings like Colossians
which basically call us out on our inherent self-interest
when the church is also trying to butter us up
to give more money.
Essentially, “You’re a big sinner and you should be ashamed
—but pay up and it’ll be okay.”
Don’t get me wrong, we do some amazing things with the money
—but don’t give because we need it,
give because you need to give your stuff and yourself away,
give because giving removes the temptation
to trust in something not God
give away because you need to know just how filled
your life really is.
Here’s the deal:
whether it’s a little or a lot, acquiring and holding on to wealth
is the lens we see the world through.
Giving away wealth in any amount
is the lens God sees the world through.
We come at things from an attitude of scarcity,
God comes from a posture of abundance.
Let me tell you a story:
several years ago, the Episcopal Diocesan Convention
—Synod Assembly to y’all—was in Columbus.
We’d spent a good portion of the convention talking about money
and what we should do with what we had
—some thought we had too much,
some thought not enough—
typical conversations at convention.
Our closing Eucharist took place in the chapel at my seminary
and the place was packed.
When it came time for the ushers to bring
the offerings of bread, wine, and money forward to the altar,
it was like a comedy of errors.
Two ushers had the three plates of bread
which looked like cartoonish stacks of pancakes
—easily a foot tall each.
There were two enormous cruets of wine.
And the money was the most ridiculous.
I don’t know if someone forgot to get the larger baskets
or if people were particularly generous,
but as the ushers came forwards, the baskets were so full,
dollar bills fell out onto the floor.
They’d stop to pick them up and more would fall out.
They got to the altar and somehow crammed everything
onto the surface
and I could see our bishop just grinning
and saying “marvelous, marvelous.”
And it was.
There was such abundance there that day,
we all could see God’s kingdom right there in front of us—
there’s enough—no, more than enough—to go around.
How wonderful, how marvelous,
how ridiculously generous of God to give us such gifts.
We are far richer than we allow ourselves to believe,
in money, yes, and in talent and in time and in love
—wouldn’t we want to share that?
Wouldn’t we want to offer it to everyone we meet?
Wouldn’t it be a relief to let go of the fear and the scarcity
and the worry and the idolatry and the greed?
Wouldn’t we want to allow the resurrection
—Jesus’ ridiculously generous offer of life—to mean something? Wouldn’t we want to participate in the building of the Kingdom
of justice and mercy and abundance here and now?
Brothers and sisters, this life we’re offered in Jesus
is a celebration of abundance
This worship service every single week is a celebration of abundance
—so let’s party!
* * *
My husband likes to say he succumbs to the sin of uxoriousness.
That’s the sin of loving your wife more than God.
To which I reply, “thanks?”
Uxoriousness—use it in a sentence today…
This is of course a form of idolatry,
a way to put something else in the place of God,
to make something or someone, in effect, your God.
Lots of things can be idols—golden calves, trophies, a career, money,
…and insert a deeply-felt groan here
because you’ve just realized it’s that time of year again…
It’s time for speeches about how we need your money,
heart-felt speeches saying essentially,
“give it up you tightwads, this stuff ain’t free,
oh and here’s some scripture to make you feel guilty”
that’s right, it’s stewardship season!
So, while we’re being honest about how we feel
about stewardship sermons
let’s be honest about why we don’t give more
—it’s because we come from an attitude of scarcity.
We think we ought to trust God for everything, right?
God’s the Creator and everything,
but what kind of return does God give on a $1000 investment?
What’s the deductible on God’s insurance plan?
No, God’s all right and all, but we need to trust something else,
something tangible or measurable. Something real…
We trust other things, put other things in the place of God
because we don’t think God will be enough
we don’t think there will be enough…whatever…to go around.
Now, I’m not saying we should all stop planning for the future,
but those plans are not God.
That future is usually anything but
what we expect it to be.
It is uncertain and it fills us with fear.
So we plan and worry and save and hoard
and become greedy for what we already have
—God’s promise that it will all be okay
in the end, right? And if it’s not okay…
[it’s not the end]
Here’s an example—
there are two documents in your house,
or on whatever tech device you use,
that will tell me exactly what you care about and what you fear.
They are your credit card statement and your calendar.
One will tell me what you spend your money on
—and what you don’t spend your money on—
and the other what you spend your time on.
These two paint a picture of who you are in the real world,
where your treasure and your heart are.
You might say they’re moral documents
You might say that they show us the idols we worship.
But what does that mean, “the idols we worship”?
What does it mean to worship anything?
Worship is intense devotion of time and energy.
Worship is giving worth—ultimate worth—to something.
Worship shows what comes before anything else in our lives.
Worship involves joy, maybe a tinge of fear, and a sense of awe.
It’s not unlike the devotion we show to sports teams in this town.
Now, I’m not going to lie, my team of choice is amazing
—they go out there and hustle,
they work hard, and they bring home the victory,
so there’s a reason the Cincinnati Rollergirls
are my favorite and that I’ve got tickets
to the next three bouts
—but I don’t worship them.
I used to have very disconcerting conversations
with parents of teenagers
about how their kids couldn’t come to confirmation class
—confirmation class!
Their conscious, adult choice to follow Jesus
Where they’re confirming they’ll try to love God
with all their hearts and souls
and minds and strengths
a class which lasted only 8 weeks—
they couldn’t come because the Bengals were playing
If that isn’t an obvious choice between God and an idol,
I don’t know what is.
No one wants to be called out on idolatry—
it’s uncomfortable, we fight such negative words,
and, really, it’s not us who are the problem
In the Colossians reading today, Paul equates idolatry with being greedy,
and no one wants to be called greedy either…
so we define it away from ourselves.
Greed is something people much richer than we are
have to struggle with.
Greed is extreme, greed is ugly, greed is unnecessary.
We could never be like that.
And this is precisely why folks don’t care for stewardship season—
readings like Colossians
which basically call us out on our inherent self-interest
when the church is also trying to butter us up
to give more money.
Essentially, “You’re a big sinner and you should be ashamed
—but pay up and it’ll be okay.”
Don’t get me wrong, we do some amazing things with the money
—but don’t give because we need it,
give because you need to give your stuff and yourself away,
give because giving removes the temptation
to trust in something not God
give away because you need to know just how filled
your life really is.
Here’s the deal:
whether it’s a little or a lot, acquiring and holding on to wealth
is the lens we see the world through.
Giving away wealth in any amount
is the lens God sees the world through.
We come at things from an attitude of scarcity,
God comes from a posture of abundance.
Let me tell you a story:
several years ago, the Episcopal Diocesan Convention
—Synod Assembly to y’all—was in Columbus.
We’d spent a good portion of the convention talking about money
and what we should do with what we had
—some thought we had too much,
some thought not enough—
typical conversations at convention.
Our closing Eucharist took place in the chapel at my seminary
and the place was packed.
When it came time for the ushers to bring
the offerings of bread, wine, and money forward to the altar,
it was like a comedy of errors.
Two ushers had the three plates of bread
which looked like cartoonish stacks of pancakes
—easily a foot tall each.
There were two enormous cruets of wine.
And the money was the most ridiculous.
I don’t know if someone forgot to get the larger baskets
or if people were particularly generous,
but as the ushers came forwards, the baskets were so full,
dollar bills fell out onto the floor.
They’d stop to pick them up and more would fall out.
They got to the altar and somehow crammed everything
onto the surface
and I could see our bishop just grinning
and saying “marvelous, marvelous.”
And it was.
There was such abundance there that day,
we all could see God’s kingdom right there in front of us—
there’s enough—no, more than enough—to go around.
How wonderful, how marvelous,
how ridiculously generous of God to give us such gifts.
We are far richer than we allow ourselves to believe,
in money, yes, and in talent and in time and in love
—wouldn’t we want to share that?
Wouldn’t we want to offer it to everyone we meet?
Wouldn’t it be a relief to let go of the fear and the scarcity
and the worry and the idolatry and the greed?
Wouldn’t we want to allow the resurrection
—Jesus’ ridiculously generous offer of life—to mean something? Wouldn’t we want to participate in the building of the Kingdom
of justice and mercy and abundance here and now?
Brothers and sisters, this life we’re offered in Jesus
is a celebration of abundance
This worship service every single week is a celebration of abundance
—so let’s party!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
reflections on an anniversary
Tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of the signing of the Called to Common Mission statement. For those of you not aware, CCM is the full-communion statement between the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church (ELCA). And I find myself in a place I had hoped for but didn't expect ten years down the road.
When the agreement was first being talked about, I was suffused with hope. How beautiful that two Christian denominations would let go of our differences enough to recognize the Holy Spirit in our midst. How welcoming that could be to folks on the outside to see Christians doing what we say we should do--love one another. How intriguing it would be to pastor a multi-denominational (not non-denominational) church.
One of my first thoughts was, "Ooh, I want to be that pastor. I want to help us come together where we've historically pulled apart." And my second was, "How will this really work?"
I was delighted that a given congregation could ask for resumes and choose among a wider field of applicants so as to find the right person for the job, regardless of denomination. That's not how it works, as you might have expected, but I did not. No, a Lutheran church will look at Lutheran candidates and will only look at an Episcopalian when the options are gone. And vice versa.
But ten years out, I find myself working for the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and also representing the Episcopal Church. And sometimes Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Catholic, but that's another story. Here ten years later, the club of pastors whose jobs are a result of the CCM is fairly small. And we don't all know one another. But we're here, and we're offering something to our churches you don't often find in a regular church--intentional differences.
At the Edge campus ministry house at UC, we've been working on our "Rule of Common Life," akin to the monastic practice of the same name. And one item which comes up in every discussion is that of diversity. We value our differences, not because it looks pretty or attractive to donors, but because those differences in race, sexuality, denomination, faith, gender, socioeconomic status, or politic encourage conversation. It would seem that because we began as multi-denominational, our whole ethos has taken on that flavor.
I don't agree with everything brother Martin Luther wrote. And my Lutheran students don't agree with everything brother Thomas Cranmer wrote. We might all agree with brother CS Lewis, but then again, maybe not. We spend our time listening not for judgement but for connection and for understanding. We don't always succeed. But I don't think a place like this would exist without the Called to Common Mission to push us towards each other so intentionally.
When the agreement was first being talked about, I was suffused with hope. How beautiful that two Christian denominations would let go of our differences enough to recognize the Holy Spirit in our midst. How welcoming that could be to folks on the outside to see Christians doing what we say we should do--love one another. How intriguing it would be to pastor a multi-denominational (not non-denominational) church.
One of my first thoughts was, "Ooh, I want to be that pastor. I want to help us come together where we've historically pulled apart." And my second was, "How will this really work?"
I was delighted that a given congregation could ask for resumes and choose among a wider field of applicants so as to find the right person for the job, regardless of denomination. That's not how it works, as you might have expected, but I did not. No, a Lutheran church will look at Lutheran candidates and will only look at an Episcopalian when the options are gone. And vice versa.
But ten years out, I find myself working for the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and also representing the Episcopal Church. And sometimes Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Catholic, but that's another story. Here ten years later, the club of pastors whose jobs are a result of the CCM is fairly small. And we don't all know one another. But we're here, and we're offering something to our churches you don't often find in a regular church--intentional differences.
At the Edge campus ministry house at UC, we've been working on our "Rule of Common Life," akin to the monastic practice of the same name. And one item which comes up in every discussion is that of diversity. We value our differences, not because it looks pretty or attractive to donors, but because those differences in race, sexuality, denomination, faith, gender, socioeconomic status, or politic encourage conversation. It would seem that because we began as multi-denominational, our whole ethos has taken on that flavor.
I don't agree with everything brother Martin Luther wrote. And my Lutheran students don't agree with everything brother Thomas Cranmer wrote. We might all agree with brother CS Lewis, but then again, maybe not. We spend our time listening not for judgement but for connection and for understanding. We don't always succeed. But I don't think a place like this would exist without the Called to Common Mission to push us towards each other so intentionally.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
last week's sermon--Ecclesiastes 1-2
I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and say that Death is not okay.
Actually, it’s kind of pointless
Like stories we’ve heard of high kids who commit suicide
because they were bullied for being gay
or my neighbor a few houses down who had been clean and sober,
Who had dedicated his life to helping other addicts clean up
My neighbor who was murdered last year in his house
by God knows who
or all the civilians being killed in Ivory Coast and Libya
in complicated wars that seem to be based on who’s in power
“Vanity, vanity,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes
“all is vanity and a chasing after wind,” am I right?
Vanity is not a great translation, though, of Ecclesiastes’ words
the word is more like wind or breath,
something which cannot be seen and dissipates in seconds,
something which has great importance or maybe is meaningless
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
Death, it seems, isn’t so much gravity pulling us down,
keeping us from soaring with Jesus—
death, it seems, is pointless, empty, unfathomable.
There’s a moment in the movie The Mummy Returns
when the charming archaeologist,
—she’s the wife of the charming, rogueish hero
and mother of the charming young boy—
She dies.
And it’s so anticlimactic.
They’ve just survived a ridiculous amount of supernatural threats
And they’re resting, they’ve won!
And she gets knifed in the ribs.
Ridiculous.
And tragic.
And as her son and brother look on,
her husband the hero kneels beside her saying
“what do I do, Evie? What do I do? I don’t know what to do…”
and then in tears “come back, Evie, come back, come back”
there is only a breath between the life in her eyes and death,
it’s such a thin moment, such a pointless death
such a chasing after wind
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
When I worked as a chaplain in the hospital at the University of Tennessee,
death was a constant companion.
Whether or not our patients died,
the possibility was always there, lurking.
It often made our actions feel pointless
what am I praying for, exactly?
For you my brother, to be miraculously healed
of your emphysema after 40 years of smoking?
Or for you, my sister, to find a job
and suddenly pull yourself out of generational poverty? Absolutely! but not with much hope.
Let me tell you two stories of death from that hospital
they might illuminate what Ecclesiastes is talking about
and what it is that Jesus did for Lazarus and us:
In the first, a man in his mid-nineties was admitted to the hospital
with pneumonia
I visited him and his middle-aged daughters
—he seemed charming but frail, as you might expect
They patched him up and sent him on his way
Only a week later, he was back, this time in the ICU
His daughters were there at his bedside constantly,
praying for his recovery
But as the days wore on into weeks, the situation became more grim
The man’s daughters insisted that he remain at a full code status
Meaning that whenever his heart stopped or similar
Eight nurses descended to do CPR
and they broke his ribs every time
His bed was covered with small prayer cloths, and crosses
And several bibles opened to specific passages on healing
When I visited, every single time,
they were on their knees on the floor praying hard
for the return of his health
—and not just health,
but vitality, energy, strength, youth
Brothers and sisters—their devotion and love were palpable
and I do not mock them—
but their unwillingness to see his life as well-lived
and nearing its end was tragic.
And pointless.
He hung on for months and, based on what else I saw at the hospital,
it was because they wouldn’t let him go.
Death became the beast in the room,
prayer became a pointless exercise in denial.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind.
Now, in the second story,
a man in his mid-sixties was admitted to the hospital
with complications from heart surgery
When I visited, his family was no less devoted or loving
But their attitude was much different
As he slowly slipped away from them in the ICU
They prayed with and for him
But for a different kind of healing
They prayed for his forgiving folks in his life
They prayed for his own forgiveness
They prayed that they would be able to bear their grief
They prayed that he would be with God
And they said goodbye
“Daddy” they said, “it’s okay. We love you. We miss you.
It’s time to go.”
Now, I can’t imagine saying goodbye to my dad so finally
I don’t want to think about his not being here
I know I’ll have to one day, and it’s not okay.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind
We’re approaching Holy Week and Easter
and it’s easy for us in 21st century American churches
to look across Good Friday to Easter like it’s just a speedbump,
to not really connect with Jesus’ death
to pretend it doesn’t mean much
because we know the end of the story.
He dies, but it’s okay because it’s not for long.
But, people, he dies.
And with him are all our moments of death
—the physical deaths we’ve experienced in our friends and families
the disasters around the world that take so many lives
we cannot comprehend them
and the more metaphorical deaths as well
When you asked someone out and they said no—a little death
When you argue with your spouse
and end up not solving anything
but just feeling bad about it—a little death
when we give in to temptation
—to anger or self-righteousness
or just ignoring another person—a little death
every one of those deaths Jesus takes with him
to the grave on Good Friday
every one of them seems pointless but they’re not.
something else happens in that last breath before dying.
Something happens to us each time someone we care for dies
And it’s not pointless at all.
—why not take a little more time to talk with someone on the street,
why not let go of some theology or political ideology,
why not appreciate every part of yourself
instead of thinking you’re not good enough?
Because we do know the end of the story.
Death is not okay. But it is real. It’s not something we can ignore.
And death is not the end.
Our Christian story says that death,
while worthy of grief, is not the last thing.
There is new life beyond.
And that’s kind of the point of the gospel today
about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
My friend and Lutheran pastor Nadia Tweeted about it:
“before Christ defeats death for good,
he first just gives it a really good slap in the face.”
This is what resurrection looks like, brothers and sisters.
This is what new life in our God is.
Resurrection—requires—death.
New life cannot grow without the end of the old one.
The plants in our gardens go dormant, die in a way,
so that they can come back lush in the Spring
We cannot live a life of charity without first letting our greedy selves die
Death is necessary for new life to flourish
But death is not the end of the story
Whether we react to the deaths we experience with denial
like the two daughters in the hospital
Or whether we react to them with tearful acceptance
like the other family,
death is not the end.
whether we’re talking about the seeming finality of physical death
or the shame of everyday emotional deaths,
it’s not the end
one of my favorite quotes is,
“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
I saw it on a greeting card at Joseph-Beth, if you can believe it,
and the breath was knocked clean out of my chest.
Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
This is the good news in every single moment of bad news we ever have.
“True life and resurrection cannot deny the reality of death.”
But there is always, always, always new life after death.
Everything will be okay in the end, my brothers and sisters,
whether it’s tomorrow
or it’s the Rapture supposedly on May 21,
or it’s some far-off judgment day,
everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
Actually, it’s kind of pointless
Like stories we’ve heard of high kids who commit suicide
because they were bullied for being gay
or my neighbor a few houses down who had been clean and sober,
Who had dedicated his life to helping other addicts clean up
My neighbor who was murdered last year in his house
by God knows who
or all the civilians being killed in Ivory Coast and Libya
in complicated wars that seem to be based on who’s in power
“Vanity, vanity,” says the writer of Ecclesiastes
“all is vanity and a chasing after wind,” am I right?
Vanity is not a great translation, though, of Ecclesiastes’ words
the word is more like wind or breath,
something which cannot be seen and dissipates in seconds,
something which has great importance or maybe is meaningless
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
Death, it seems, isn’t so much gravity pulling us down,
keeping us from soaring with Jesus—
death, it seems, is pointless, empty, unfathomable.
There’s a moment in the movie The Mummy Returns
when the charming archaeologist,
—she’s the wife of the charming, rogueish hero
and mother of the charming young boy—
She dies.
And it’s so anticlimactic.
They’ve just survived a ridiculous amount of supernatural threats
And they’re resting, they’ve won!
And she gets knifed in the ribs.
Ridiculous.
And tragic.
And as her son and brother look on,
her husband the hero kneels beside her saying
“what do I do, Evie? What do I do? I don’t know what to do…”
and then in tears “come back, Evie, come back, come back”
there is only a breath between the life in her eyes and death,
it’s such a thin moment, such a pointless death
such a chasing after wind
“Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind”
When I worked as a chaplain in the hospital at the University of Tennessee,
death was a constant companion.
Whether or not our patients died,
the possibility was always there, lurking.
It often made our actions feel pointless
what am I praying for, exactly?
For you my brother, to be miraculously healed
of your emphysema after 40 years of smoking?
Or for you, my sister, to find a job
and suddenly pull yourself out of generational poverty? Absolutely! but not with much hope.
Let me tell you two stories of death from that hospital
they might illuminate what Ecclesiastes is talking about
and what it is that Jesus did for Lazarus and us:
In the first, a man in his mid-nineties was admitted to the hospital
with pneumonia
I visited him and his middle-aged daughters
—he seemed charming but frail, as you might expect
They patched him up and sent him on his way
Only a week later, he was back, this time in the ICU
His daughters were there at his bedside constantly,
praying for his recovery
But as the days wore on into weeks, the situation became more grim
The man’s daughters insisted that he remain at a full code status
Meaning that whenever his heart stopped or similar
Eight nurses descended to do CPR
and they broke his ribs every time
His bed was covered with small prayer cloths, and crosses
And several bibles opened to specific passages on healing
When I visited, every single time,
they were on their knees on the floor praying hard
for the return of his health
—and not just health,
but vitality, energy, strength, youth
Brothers and sisters—their devotion and love were palpable
and I do not mock them—
but their unwillingness to see his life as well-lived
and nearing its end was tragic.
And pointless.
He hung on for months and, based on what else I saw at the hospital,
it was because they wouldn’t let him go.
Death became the beast in the room,
prayer became a pointless exercise in denial.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind.
Now, in the second story,
a man in his mid-sixties was admitted to the hospital
with complications from heart surgery
When I visited, his family was no less devoted or loving
But their attitude was much different
As he slowly slipped away from them in the ICU
They prayed with and for him
But for a different kind of healing
They prayed for his forgiving folks in his life
They prayed for his own forgiveness
They prayed that they would be able to bear their grief
They prayed that he would be with God
And they said goodbye
“Daddy” they said, “it’s okay. We love you. We miss you.
It’s time to go.”
Now, I can’t imagine saying goodbye to my dad so finally
I don’t want to think about his not being here
I know I’ll have to one day, and it’s not okay.
Breath, breath, all is breath and a chasing after wind
We’re approaching Holy Week and Easter
and it’s easy for us in 21st century American churches
to look across Good Friday to Easter like it’s just a speedbump,
to not really connect with Jesus’ death
to pretend it doesn’t mean much
because we know the end of the story.
He dies, but it’s okay because it’s not for long.
But, people, he dies.
And with him are all our moments of death
—the physical deaths we’ve experienced in our friends and families
the disasters around the world that take so many lives
we cannot comprehend them
and the more metaphorical deaths as well
When you asked someone out and they said no—a little death
When you argue with your spouse
and end up not solving anything
but just feeling bad about it—a little death
when we give in to temptation
—to anger or self-righteousness
or just ignoring another person—a little death
every one of those deaths Jesus takes with him
to the grave on Good Friday
every one of them seems pointless but they’re not.
something else happens in that last breath before dying.
Something happens to us each time someone we care for dies
And it’s not pointless at all.
—why not take a little more time to talk with someone on the street,
why not let go of some theology or political ideology,
why not appreciate every part of yourself
instead of thinking you’re not good enough?
Because we do know the end of the story.
Death is not okay. But it is real. It’s not something we can ignore.
And death is not the end.
Our Christian story says that death,
while worthy of grief, is not the last thing.
There is new life beyond.
And that’s kind of the point of the gospel today
about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
My friend and Lutheran pastor Nadia Tweeted about it:
“before Christ defeats death for good,
he first just gives it a really good slap in the face.”
This is what resurrection looks like, brothers and sisters.
This is what new life in our God is.
Resurrection—requires—death.
New life cannot grow without the end of the old one.
The plants in our gardens go dormant, die in a way,
so that they can come back lush in the Spring
We cannot live a life of charity without first letting our greedy selves die
Death is necessary for new life to flourish
But death is not the end of the story
Whether we react to the deaths we experience with denial
like the two daughters in the hospital
Or whether we react to them with tearful acceptance
like the other family,
death is not the end.
whether we’re talking about the seeming finality of physical death
or the shame of everyday emotional deaths,
it’s not the end
one of my favorite quotes is,
“Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
I saw it on a greeting card at Joseph-Beth, if you can believe it,
and the breath was knocked clean out of my chest.
Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
This is the good news in every single moment of bad news we ever have.
“True life and resurrection cannot deny the reality of death.”
But there is always, always, always new life after death.
Everything will be okay in the end, my brothers and sisters,
whether it’s tomorrow
or it’s the Rapture supposedly on May 21,
or it’s some far-off judgment day,
everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Ash Wednesday sermon--Joel 2:1-17
[play clip from The Mummy Returns: composite clip of the army of Anubis arising from the sand and fighting the human army]
That’s a clip from the movie The Mummy Returns
—it’s a fun flick, not particularly deep,
but this bit with the rag-tag good guys
going up against the powers of darkness—it’s very moving.
There’s no way they can survive,
no way to endure the endless onslaught
of the army of the Egyptian god of the dead,
yet they stand their ground,
refusing to give in to the forces pulling them down
into despair and death.
And it kind of looks like the Old Testament.
We all think of the Old Testament as angry and judgmental, right?
That reading from the prophet Joel—how much of that did you take in?
It was a bit long, I know…
It talks about invading armies like darkness,
destroying everything in their path
God at the head, leading them on, calling for bloody recompense
—that reading from the prophet Joel doesn’t help, does it?
God just seems so cranky in the Old Testament,
so violent and approving of violence
and we go with it, don’t we?
There’s some good stuff there, but it’s mostly blood and sand
and angry people fighting each other in God’s name
It’s convenient to forget the violence in the New Testament
The places where Jesus throws the vendors out of the Temple
with harsh words like a lash
The places where Jesus curses a fig tree for not having figs,
even though it isn’t fig season, which the text points out
The place where Ananias and Sapphira, Christian converts,
sell their land and give the money to the Apostles
for the well-being of the church.
And, because they hold some of the money back
and lie about it, they drop dead. Right there.
And then Peter launches into a sermon on the spot.
Don’t tell me the New Testament doesn’t have it’s share of violence.
Don’t say Jesus is all sunshine and comforting stories,
because you’ve missed the point.
Absolutely Jesus shows us a different way, brings hope and comfort
Absolutely he brings and is good news!
But there’s a darkness mixed into the message as well.
We see the anger in the Hebrew prophets
We see the weirdly abrupt shifts of mood in the Psalms
And we don’t get it
we see them as evidence of God’s capriciousness,
God must be this vindictive, when we don’t do as God asks, right?
Scripture says it, so let’s take it seriously for a moment.
Tremble in fear, says the text, and we reject that out of hand.
We oughtn’t fear our God who loves us like a parent.
Yet the scriptures are full of language describing God as awesome
…and not like most of us use it now.
Awesome as in worthy of awe,
so inconceivably large, so powerful, so beautiful,
so overwhelming that all we can do
is crash to our knees and gape.
Maybe pray.
Maybe cry in joy and fear.
If God is omnibenevolent and omnipresent
and omniscient and omnipotent,
maybe we’d better be at least a little scared.
Joel writes, “Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible
indeed—who can endure it?”
If God sends the armies, seriously, who would survive?
There’s a new book out that I’m eager to read
It’s called Love Wins
and author and pastor Rob Bell says in the promotional material,
“What is God like? …Millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. So what gets subtly caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that God ever be good news?”
What is God really like?
How does God act in the world?
Seems to me that these are the questions
that scripture, at the very least, is trying to answer
What is God like?
In verse 12 of the Joel reading, we get a sudden shift
Invading armies, fear and trembling, yadda yadda…
—yet! “God is gracious and merciful
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.”
This is the God we know from every sermon ever
This is the God we long for, the God who we love and are loved by
This is the God from whom we can believe good news
But what if they’re both God?
What if God is both angry and forgiving?
And what if God isn’t bipolar, as my friend Ross suggested last night,
but is complex and not easily understood?
At the risk of describing God in too small a way, I offer an example
I have a 2-year-old and she’s delightful
I would go so far as to quote God from last week’s Gospel
“this is my daughter, my beloved,
in whom I am well pleased”
being 2, Abby is innately curious and exuberant
and, being 2, she has no filters yet,
and so any roadblock is a huge crisis
by “huge crisis,” I mean, “reason to throw herself
on the floor and scream and cry”
so, the other day, we were watching Toy Story as we often do
and Abby had a cup of juice without a lid
now, this may have been my big mistake, the no-lid thing,
but she’s a big girl and often can drink unaided
I said, “be careful with that cup, Ab”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And I said, “I’ll be right back—don’t sit on the couch”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And from the other room I heard her say “more juice”
And I looked and she’d spilled it
All over the couch
And the floor
And my papers
And I was angry
—angrier than I ought to have been, probably
But I would never, absolutely never ever hurt her
In that moment I was both angry and forgiving
I was both frustrated with what had happened
and deeply in love with my daughter
we forget that much of scripture is poetry
—the prophets and the Psalms are experience and art
not history or biography
Joel is a poet, translating what he sees in the world into verse
Seeing his country, his faith, his enemies, and his blessings
through the lens of metaphor
Joel is writing not about a specific invasion then or now
But about every invasion Israel had had to that point,
about the fear in his gut at seeing an army arrayed on the horizon,
ready to descend,
about the experience of being at war
and he’s writing about invasions of locusts
which, by all accounts, were fairly common in Israel
locusts which, when swarming, make a sound like a raging fire
locusts which destroy an Eden-like landscape in minutes
locusts which might seem like an army,
which might seem like divine retribution for our sins
Joel is writing a poem where God’s anger is the invading armies
and it is the devastation of locusts,
and where all of that fear and despair becomes,
in the blink of an eye,
hope
This is not the work of some dumb desert-dweller
who only saw God as angry,
nor is it a literal picture of God
leading heavenly armies to destroy us now
This is a painting of a multi-faceted God
who loves us
and is annoyed by us
and who created us in the beginning for community and love.
And who relents.
Who does not hurt us, no matter how often we say
“it’s God’s will” in response to something bad
who scatters the invading armies like so much sand
and who calls us back every week, every day,
every hour, every minute
to faithfulness, justice, compassion, and prayer
What if the imposition of these ashes is our responding to that call
Is our saying that we ourselves have been the invading armies
to someone
and that the armies we see invading us
—whether Islamic extremists, Christian extremists,
Communists, the British, secularism, conservatism, etc.—
these armies, like us, are but dust, and to dust they shall return.
What if the imposition of these ashes is us standing our ground,
Like the guys in The Mummy Returns
Receiving these ashes is our refusal to give in
to the forces pulling us down into despair and death.
What if the imposition of these ashes and the communion that follows
Are a gift from God of patience and strength
and protection and deep, abiding love
What if these ashes signify humility—of course—and also new life?
[play second clip from The Mummy Returns: composite clip of the human army preparing to face a second wave of the army of Anubis, the sand-army rushes forward and at the last second disintegrates into black sand which disappears. The humans rejoice.]
That’s a clip from the movie The Mummy Returns
—it’s a fun flick, not particularly deep,
but this bit with the rag-tag good guys
going up against the powers of darkness—it’s very moving.
There’s no way they can survive,
no way to endure the endless onslaught
of the army of the Egyptian god of the dead,
yet they stand their ground,
refusing to give in to the forces pulling them down
into despair and death.
And it kind of looks like the Old Testament.
We all think of the Old Testament as angry and judgmental, right?
That reading from the prophet Joel—how much of that did you take in?
It was a bit long, I know…
It talks about invading armies like darkness,
destroying everything in their path
God at the head, leading them on, calling for bloody recompense
—that reading from the prophet Joel doesn’t help, does it?
God just seems so cranky in the Old Testament,
so violent and approving of violence
and we go with it, don’t we?
There’s some good stuff there, but it’s mostly blood and sand
and angry people fighting each other in God’s name
It’s convenient to forget the violence in the New Testament
The places where Jesus throws the vendors out of the Temple
with harsh words like a lash
The places where Jesus curses a fig tree for not having figs,
even though it isn’t fig season, which the text points out
The place where Ananias and Sapphira, Christian converts,
sell their land and give the money to the Apostles
for the well-being of the church.
And, because they hold some of the money back
and lie about it, they drop dead. Right there.
And then Peter launches into a sermon on the spot.
Don’t tell me the New Testament doesn’t have it’s share of violence.
Don’t say Jesus is all sunshine and comforting stories,
because you’ve missed the point.
Absolutely Jesus shows us a different way, brings hope and comfort
Absolutely he brings and is good news!
But there’s a darkness mixed into the message as well.
We see the anger in the Hebrew prophets
We see the weirdly abrupt shifts of mood in the Psalms
And we don’t get it
we see them as evidence of God’s capriciousness,
God must be this vindictive, when we don’t do as God asks, right?
Scripture says it, so let’s take it seriously for a moment.
Tremble in fear, says the text, and we reject that out of hand.
We oughtn’t fear our God who loves us like a parent.
Yet the scriptures are full of language describing God as awesome
…and not like most of us use it now.
Awesome as in worthy of awe,
so inconceivably large, so powerful, so beautiful,
so overwhelming that all we can do
is crash to our knees and gape.
Maybe pray.
Maybe cry in joy and fear.
If God is omnibenevolent and omnipresent
and omniscient and omnipotent,
maybe we’d better be at least a little scared.
Joel writes, “Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible
indeed—who can endure it?”
If God sends the armies, seriously, who would survive?
There’s a new book out that I’m eager to read
It’s called Love Wins
and author and pastor Rob Bell says in the promotional material,
“What is God like? …Millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. So what gets subtly caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that God ever be good news?”
What is God really like?
How does God act in the world?
Seems to me that these are the questions
that scripture, at the very least, is trying to answer
What is God like?
In verse 12 of the Joel reading, we get a sudden shift
Invading armies, fear and trembling, yadda yadda…
—yet! “God is gracious and merciful
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.”
This is the God we know from every sermon ever
This is the God we long for, the God who we love and are loved by
This is the God from whom we can believe good news
But what if they’re both God?
What if God is both angry and forgiving?
And what if God isn’t bipolar, as my friend Ross suggested last night,
but is complex and not easily understood?
At the risk of describing God in too small a way, I offer an example
I have a 2-year-old and she’s delightful
I would go so far as to quote God from last week’s Gospel
“this is my daughter, my beloved,
in whom I am well pleased”
being 2, Abby is innately curious and exuberant
and, being 2, she has no filters yet,
and so any roadblock is a huge crisis
by “huge crisis,” I mean, “reason to throw herself
on the floor and scream and cry”
so, the other day, we were watching Toy Story as we often do
and Abby had a cup of juice without a lid
now, this may have been my big mistake, the no-lid thing,
but she’s a big girl and often can drink unaided
I said, “be careful with that cup, Ab”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And I said, “I’ll be right back—don’t sit on the couch”
And she said, “OH-kay!”
And from the other room I heard her say “more juice”
And I looked and she’d spilled it
All over the couch
And the floor
And my papers
And I was angry
—angrier than I ought to have been, probably
But I would never, absolutely never ever hurt her
In that moment I was both angry and forgiving
I was both frustrated with what had happened
and deeply in love with my daughter
we forget that much of scripture is poetry
—the prophets and the Psalms are experience and art
not history or biography
Joel is a poet, translating what he sees in the world into verse
Seeing his country, his faith, his enemies, and his blessings
through the lens of metaphor
Joel is writing not about a specific invasion then or now
But about every invasion Israel had had to that point,
about the fear in his gut at seeing an army arrayed on the horizon,
ready to descend,
about the experience of being at war
and he’s writing about invasions of locusts
which, by all accounts, were fairly common in Israel
locusts which, when swarming, make a sound like a raging fire
locusts which destroy an Eden-like landscape in minutes
locusts which might seem like an army,
which might seem like divine retribution for our sins
Joel is writing a poem where God’s anger is the invading armies
and it is the devastation of locusts,
and where all of that fear and despair becomes,
in the blink of an eye,
hope
This is not the work of some dumb desert-dweller
who only saw God as angry,
nor is it a literal picture of God
leading heavenly armies to destroy us now
This is a painting of a multi-faceted God
who loves us
and is annoyed by us
and who created us in the beginning for community and love.
And who relents.
Who does not hurt us, no matter how often we say
“it’s God’s will” in response to something bad
who scatters the invading armies like so much sand
and who calls us back every week, every day,
every hour, every minute
to faithfulness, justice, compassion, and prayer
What if the imposition of these ashes is our responding to that call
Is our saying that we ourselves have been the invading armies
to someone
and that the armies we see invading us
—whether Islamic extremists, Christian extremists,
Communists, the British, secularism, conservatism, etc.—
these armies, like us, are but dust, and to dust they shall return.
What if the imposition of these ashes is us standing our ground,
Like the guys in The Mummy Returns
Receiving these ashes is our refusal to give in
to the forces pulling us down into despair and death.
What if the imposition of these ashes and the communion that follows
Are a gift from God of patience and strength
and protection and deep, abiding love
What if these ashes signify humility—of course—and also new life?
[play second clip from The Mummy Returns: composite clip of the human army preparing to face a second wave of the army of Anubis, the sand-army rushes forward and at the last second disintegrates into black sand which disappears. The humans rejoice.]
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Newsletter article 2.27.11
“Did that hurt?”
This is the number one question I get about my tattoos. Followed by “What’s that say?” and “Why would you do that?” (This last, usually from my father.)
Does it hurt? Of course it hurts. Not to be gross, but it’s basically an open wound for a day or so. It stings for a few hours after it’s done, and then it feels bruised for a day or so.
So why do I do it? Each of my six tattoos is a physical marker for a moment in my life I want to remember. From the moment I realized God was calling me to be a priest to the birth of my daughter, each one is representative of a difficult but rewarding experience. I hesitated to talk about it here, since they’re so personal, yet they also strike me as a good metaphor for the gospel.
Gospel comes from the Greek euanggelion which means “good news.” The four Gospels in our scripture are good news to all of us living in the middle of bad news. Jesus—his deeds, his words, the very fact of his existence—is good news in our bad news. And, while good news is always good, we don’t always receive it that way. Too often, the good news that we don’t have to rely on ourselves and our big brains for salvation reads like bad news—I don’t want to lose control, I have some pretty cool ideas if you’d listen, who’s this God-person anyway. Too often, healing from whatever wounds we have—whether they’re physical or spiritual—is worse than when we got them. In the movie Wit, Emma Thompson’s character notes that the treatment for her cancer makes her much sicker than the disease itself.
And, to be fair, sometimes the good news is simply that—good news. Sometimes it is freeing and transforming and delightful right there on the surface. Thank God for those moments. But as freeing and transforming as the good news is that Jesus brings, we sometimes don’t want to hear it. It’s painful or scary. Yet when we accept it, when we step back to see the painting Jesus has made on the canvas of our lives, it’s beautiful.
The process of getting a tattoo is painful, but the result is beautiful. To me, anyway. The healing of my skin reminds me that God heals all our wounds, that God created us resilient, that even the worst pain can leave us different but wiser.
This is the number one question I get about my tattoos. Followed by “What’s that say?” and “Why would you do that?” (This last, usually from my father.)
Does it hurt? Of course it hurts. Not to be gross, but it’s basically an open wound for a day or so. It stings for a few hours after it’s done, and then it feels bruised for a day or so.
So why do I do it? Each of my six tattoos is a physical marker for a moment in my life I want to remember. From the moment I realized God was calling me to be a priest to the birth of my daughter, each one is representative of a difficult but rewarding experience. I hesitated to talk about it here, since they’re so personal, yet they also strike me as a good metaphor for the gospel.
Gospel comes from the Greek euanggelion which means “good news.” The four Gospels in our scripture are good news to all of us living in the middle of bad news. Jesus—his deeds, his words, the very fact of his existence—is good news in our bad news. And, while good news is always good, we don’t always receive it that way. Too often, the good news that we don’t have to rely on ourselves and our big brains for salvation reads like bad news—I don’t want to lose control, I have some pretty cool ideas if you’d listen, who’s this God-person anyway. Too often, healing from whatever wounds we have—whether they’re physical or spiritual—is worse than when we got them. In the movie Wit, Emma Thompson’s character notes that the treatment for her cancer makes her much sicker than the disease itself.
And, to be fair, sometimes the good news is simply that—good news. Sometimes it is freeing and transforming and delightful right there on the surface. Thank God for those moments. But as freeing and transforming as the good news is that Jesus brings, we sometimes don’t want to hear it. It’s painful or scary. Yet when we accept it, when we step back to see the painting Jesus has made on the canvas of our lives, it’s beautiful.
The process of getting a tattoo is painful, but the result is beautiful. To me, anyway. The healing of my skin reminds me that God heals all our wounds, that God created us resilient, that even the worst pain can leave us different but wiser.
sunday's sermon--Matthew 17:1-9
Apologies again for the weird formatting.
the disciples get a bad rap in the Gospels
they never seem to understand anything Jesus says
and even when they're shown convincing proof
that he can do what he says he can do
they don't believe and seem puzzled when Jesus rebukes them
just before the Gospel we heard today,
the disciples are seen complaining that they're hungry
and have no bread to eat
just before that Jesus had fed the 5000 with just 5 loaves and 2 fish
and he is understandably frustrated that they can't make the connection
we might say they have no vision
it seems Peter doesn't have vision either
many of us know the story of the Transfiguration well
—and think Peter is an idiot
it's hard not to read it that way
he's gone up the mountain with Jesus to pray
and when Jesus suddenly glows with an unearthly light
it's as if Peter's seeing Jesus for the first time in all his glory
his heart is full
and he's got butterflies in his stomach like he's in love
and he sees God, really sees God in this Jesus
and it's amazing
and he thinks
"I'll put up some tents so we can stay here always
cause this is so cool."
what an idiot, right?
how could he not see what was right in front of him?
how could he not see God revealing Godself and not interrupt?
we, of course, are rational and perceptive people
and we would certainly have been silent and pious
in the face of such holiness…right?
I don't think so
at the sight of my buddy suddenly clothed in dazzling white
and talking to long-dead prophets
I probably would have screamed like a little girl
the history of the church doesn't give us a positive example either
every time a mystic or prophet had a vision,
we codified it
isolated the moment from creation
created a worship service around it
or added to our protocols so we'd be ready the next time
we are nothing if not prepared for the unexpected
the thing is, God breaks in anyway.
why do we do it?
why keep ourselves so scheduled that there is not time for pause or silence or prayer?
is it because we don't actually feel the presence of God?
that we feel like frauds if we admit we don't know what we're doing spiritually?
that we need to hide from a chaotic and seemingly immoral universe by being busy?
think of the times you've tried to make a difference and failed for whatever reason
for years people have been trying to revitalize historic Old Saint George church in Clifton
making it a gathering place, a café, anything
Leighton and I used to go there for lunch every week
they always had fresh, seasonal foods
like corn on the cobb or summer tomatoes
or ribs that melted off the bone
and we always met interesting people there
musicians, business people, homeless men, and visionaries
Old Saint George burned down a couple years ago—it’s vacant
many of us know people who are addicts or mentally ill
and their behavior can be irrational and hurtful
we try to help by forcing them into rehab or intervening
and often it doesn't work and they spiral away
why bother?
in her recent book Leaving Church
Barbara Brown Taylor laments this same situation
she was a small-town parish priest
working hard to make a difference
when she realized there was no joy in what she was doing
She writes, "I pecked God on the cheek the same way I did Ed, drying up inside for want of making love."
that's something we don’t talk about in church
but that's just it
we've been making dinner and making money and not making love
maybe our need to build tents on the mountaintop is because we are so in awe
because we long for something beyond ourselves
not a god-shaped hole
but a pull towards the god we somehow already know
and who knows us
the story of the transfiguration is not about Peter's being an idiot
and trying to pin down what can't be pinned down
it's about his longing for God
he is amazed and overwhelmed by the vision before him
all his life he's desired to see God
to have proof of his faith
to experience that deep joy
and he does
he sees the immediacy of God
the physical incarnation of God in all things
more than that, the story of the transfiguration is about God
God desires us in return
God created us out of love, out of desire for another
how can we not speak of falling in love with god and god with us?
isn't that why you're here today?
You've met God somewhere
on the road
at work
in a stranger
in your family
in a book
even in church
and you've fallen in love with Jesus
the Psalm assigned to yesterday's feast of the Presentation
speaks eloquently of this desire:
"my soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
That is beautiful—"my soul longs for the Lord…"
can you feel that?
like the speaker's heart is pounding
and there is an ache in her chest
and she is leaning towards God
to hear the words and just be in the presence
And what does God say in response?
At the transfiguration
after Peter's vulnerable cry
and attempt to cling to the experience
after he falls to the ground in embarrassment and awe
his face flaming in recognition of what he's said
Jesus leans down and takes him by the hand and says
"Get up and do not be afraid."
Or maybe he's saying "I love you. Don't worry."
we're going to keep trying to make a difference
we're going to keep messing things up
we're going to keep doing some pretty fantastic things
and in every moment of every one of those things,
God is present
God is transfiguring us
no matter how low we are
no matter how perfunctory our attention to God
no matter how highly we think of ourselves
God is present
God is transfiguring us
in your longing for more and better
in your longing for understanding or connection
in your longing to reach out and invite in
God is present
God is transfiguring you
God desires you and your love
even when you don't.
the disciples get a bad rap in the Gospels
they never seem to understand anything Jesus says
and even when they're shown convincing proof
that he can do what he says he can do
they don't believe and seem puzzled when Jesus rebukes them
just before the Gospel we heard today,
the disciples are seen complaining that they're hungry
and have no bread to eat
just before that Jesus had fed the 5000 with just 5 loaves and 2 fish
and he is understandably frustrated that they can't make the connection
we might say they have no vision
it seems Peter doesn't have vision either
many of us know the story of the Transfiguration well
—and think Peter is an idiot
it's hard not to read it that way
he's gone up the mountain with Jesus to pray
and when Jesus suddenly glows with an unearthly light
it's as if Peter's seeing Jesus for the first time in all his glory
his heart is full
and he's got butterflies in his stomach like he's in love
and he sees God, really sees God in this Jesus
and it's amazing
and he thinks
"I'll put up some tents so we can stay here always
cause this is so cool."
what an idiot, right?
how could he not see what was right in front of him?
how could he not see God revealing Godself and not interrupt?
we, of course, are rational and perceptive people
and we would certainly have been silent and pious
in the face of such holiness…right?
I don't think so
at the sight of my buddy suddenly clothed in dazzling white
and talking to long-dead prophets
I probably would have screamed like a little girl
the history of the church doesn't give us a positive example either
every time a mystic or prophet had a vision,
we codified it
isolated the moment from creation
created a worship service around it
or added to our protocols so we'd be ready the next time
we are nothing if not prepared for the unexpected
the thing is, God breaks in anyway.
why do we do it?
why keep ourselves so scheduled that there is not time for pause or silence or prayer?
is it because we don't actually feel the presence of God?
that we feel like frauds if we admit we don't know what we're doing spiritually?
that we need to hide from a chaotic and seemingly immoral universe by being busy?
think of the times you've tried to make a difference and failed for whatever reason
for years people have been trying to revitalize historic Old Saint George church in Clifton
making it a gathering place, a café, anything
Leighton and I used to go there for lunch every week
they always had fresh, seasonal foods
like corn on the cobb or summer tomatoes
or ribs that melted off the bone
and we always met interesting people there
musicians, business people, homeless men, and visionaries
Old Saint George burned down a couple years ago—it’s vacant
many of us know people who are addicts or mentally ill
and their behavior can be irrational and hurtful
we try to help by forcing them into rehab or intervening
and often it doesn't work and they spiral away
why bother?
in her recent book Leaving Church
Barbara Brown Taylor laments this same situation
she was a small-town parish priest
working hard to make a difference
when she realized there was no joy in what she was doing
She writes, "I pecked God on the cheek the same way I did Ed, drying up inside for want of making love."
that's something we don’t talk about in church
but that's just it
we've been making dinner and making money and not making love
maybe our need to build tents on the mountaintop is because we are so in awe
because we long for something beyond ourselves
not a god-shaped hole
but a pull towards the god we somehow already know
and who knows us
the story of the transfiguration is not about Peter's being an idiot
and trying to pin down what can't be pinned down
it's about his longing for God
he is amazed and overwhelmed by the vision before him
all his life he's desired to see God
to have proof of his faith
to experience that deep joy
and he does
he sees the immediacy of God
the physical incarnation of God in all things
more than that, the story of the transfiguration is about God
God desires us in return
God created us out of love, out of desire for another
how can we not speak of falling in love with god and god with us?
isn't that why you're here today?
You've met God somewhere
on the road
at work
in a stranger
in your family
in a book
even in church
and you've fallen in love with Jesus
the Psalm assigned to yesterday's feast of the Presentation
speaks eloquently of this desire:
"my soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God."
That is beautiful—"my soul longs for the Lord…"
can you feel that?
like the speaker's heart is pounding
and there is an ache in her chest
and she is leaning towards God
to hear the words and just be in the presence
And what does God say in response?
At the transfiguration
after Peter's vulnerable cry
and attempt to cling to the experience
after he falls to the ground in embarrassment and awe
his face flaming in recognition of what he's said
Jesus leans down and takes him by the hand and says
"Get up and do not be afraid."
Or maybe he's saying "I love you. Don't worry."
we're going to keep trying to make a difference
we're going to keep messing things up
we're going to keep doing some pretty fantastic things
and in every moment of every one of those things,
God is present
God is transfiguring us
no matter how low we are
no matter how perfunctory our attention to God
no matter how highly we think of ourselves
God is present
God is transfiguring us
in your longing for more and better
in your longing for understanding or connection
in your longing to reach out and invite in
God is present
God is transfiguring you
God desires you and your love
even when you don't.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
sunday's sermon--Matthew 5:21-37
Baruch attah adonai elohenu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of all possibilities.
* * *
My daughter Abby is 2. It’s delightful. Except when it’s not. They talk about the terrible twos and you think, “yeah, it’ll be tough, but we can handle it” but you don’t know what that’s like until you’re in it. You really don’t. It’s more like the Sudden Unending Wailing for no Good Reason twos.
Basically, Abby wants what she wants when she wants it. She doesn’t like no. And she doesn’t like rules. A limit of one hour of television does not go over well. I once heard that toddlers are just like us grown-ups only without anything holding us back.
We don’t want rules and restrictions any more than Abby does. And so today’s lessons put us in a bit of a bind. The Old Testament lesson tells us if we obey, we’ll be prosperous, and if we don’t there will be only death and misery. Matthew talks about self-mutilation and extreme interpretations of the law. Even the Psalm talks about how delighted we are to be under the Law of the Lord, that we delight in God’s rules.
Do we? I mean, really?
How many rules govern Washington Park? Or maybe I should say “Governed”? No sleeping over night, no soliciting, no spitting, no standing, no doing anything. Awhile back, my friend Bob McGonalgle was trying to get arrested for distributing food here to bring attention to the plight of the homeless and the ridiculous laws around them. How many more rules govern the park now that it’s a construction zone, do you think?
It’s not that rules themselves are bad—I think we can all agree that having traffic lights is a helpful thing for our safety and civility—and it’s not that a given law, whether Cincinnati’s or God’s is unnecessary or too much. But they can seem so at times.
The most popular book and movie series in recent years is Harry Potter—and how often does the hero Harry follow the rules? How often does he do his own thing and delight in doing it? This is, of course, why many folks didn’t like it—because Harry wasn’t a good little boy, following the rules and doing what he was told. But if he hadn’t been creative and curious and determined not to let the people he cared about get hurt, evil would have won. Within his world, rule-breaking was the heroic response. It’s not the Bible, sure, but it is human nature writ large…
And just last week we heard Jesus say that he’s the fulfillment of the law, not the destruction of it. He even goes so far as to say not even a single cross on a T in the law will be removed because of him. So much for the kinder, gentler Jesus, the Jesus who says, “it’s okay, man—come hang out with the tax collectors and prostitutes, the tattoo artists and people who live in “bad” neighborhoods—they’re more fun anyway!”.
And this week, he says, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Sorry, this is not PG rated, folks—this is the gross part, the angry, judgmental part of the New Testament we like to forget. Jesus says pull out your own eye if you look at something you shouldn’t. And cut off your own hand if it does something it shouldn’t. Now, as Lutherans, we don’t read these things literally—you know that right?—so don’t go home and mutilate yourselves after church. But how are we supposed to take this?
He follows that up with saying that adultery is not just sleeping with someone you shouldn’t but the very thought of it—your fantasies themselves are adultery. As is divorce. This is extreme, man. Kind of like taking the Pharisees—the literalistic, religious establishment—even more seriously than they take themselves. It makes the Law pretty much impossible to follow, you know? And maybe that’s the point.
My husband says, Jesus was saying it’s not enough just to follow the rules, that following him, loving God, it’s a way of life. Can’t just check off the boxes, it’s about constant effort/work. Jesus is saying it’s about a different way of life. Being a Christian is not about rule-following—though there are certain things that we do and do not do—being a Christian is about living a different life. It’s about seeing hope where others see only failure. It’s about connecting to one another when the world says just do it for yourself. It’s about seeing something beyond our current situation, about seeing something bigger in everything we do—whether it’s raising our kids or tutoring someone or asking for change. It’s about not being alone and it’s about trying to be better.
And, more than that, it’s about God knowing that we can’t possibly fulfill it all. Jesus makes his point so extreme to point us towards God’s grace. It’s not about checking off boxes but about relying on God completely.
In my daughter’s case, she’ll figure out what rules she can break and what she can’t, just like she’ll figure out that no matter what she does, I will always love her. Seems like that’s the point of these lessons, that’s the point of talking about God as a Father, as Divine Parent. As human beings, we know what it is to be loved, but when we become parents, we know what it is to love so deeply that we are brought to our knees.
In another place, Jesus says he came to give us life and life abundantly. THIS is life abundant—to live for one another, to live with one another, sacrificing ourselves for each other and receiving each others’ sacrifices. THIS is life abundant—to return here every week to be filled with the bread of life. THIS is life abundant—to love one another as a mother loves her baby, to love one another as God loves us.
Amen.
* * *
My daughter Abby is 2. It’s delightful. Except when it’s not. They talk about the terrible twos and you think, “yeah, it’ll be tough, but we can handle it” but you don’t know what that’s like until you’re in it. You really don’t. It’s more like the Sudden Unending Wailing for no Good Reason twos.
Basically, Abby wants what she wants when she wants it. She doesn’t like no. And she doesn’t like rules. A limit of one hour of television does not go over well. I once heard that toddlers are just like us grown-ups only without anything holding us back.
We don’t want rules and restrictions any more than Abby does. And so today’s lessons put us in a bit of a bind. The Old Testament lesson tells us if we obey, we’ll be prosperous, and if we don’t there will be only death and misery. Matthew talks about self-mutilation and extreme interpretations of the law. Even the Psalm talks about how delighted we are to be under the Law of the Lord, that we delight in God’s rules.
Do we? I mean, really?
How many rules govern Washington Park? Or maybe I should say “Governed”? No sleeping over night, no soliciting, no spitting, no standing, no doing anything. Awhile back, my friend Bob McGonalgle was trying to get arrested for distributing food here to bring attention to the plight of the homeless and the ridiculous laws around them. How many more rules govern the park now that it’s a construction zone, do you think?
It’s not that rules themselves are bad—I think we can all agree that having traffic lights is a helpful thing for our safety and civility—and it’s not that a given law, whether Cincinnati’s or God’s is unnecessary or too much. But they can seem so at times.
The most popular book and movie series in recent years is Harry Potter—and how often does the hero Harry follow the rules? How often does he do his own thing and delight in doing it? This is, of course, why many folks didn’t like it—because Harry wasn’t a good little boy, following the rules and doing what he was told. But if he hadn’t been creative and curious and determined not to let the people he cared about get hurt, evil would have won. Within his world, rule-breaking was the heroic response. It’s not the Bible, sure, but it is human nature writ large…
And just last week we heard Jesus say that he’s the fulfillment of the law, not the destruction of it. He even goes so far as to say not even a single cross on a T in the law will be removed because of him. So much for the kinder, gentler Jesus, the Jesus who says, “it’s okay, man—come hang out with the tax collectors and prostitutes, the tattoo artists and people who live in “bad” neighborhoods—they’re more fun anyway!”.
And this week, he says, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Sorry, this is not PG rated, folks—this is the gross part, the angry, judgmental part of the New Testament we like to forget. Jesus says pull out your own eye if you look at something you shouldn’t. And cut off your own hand if it does something it shouldn’t. Now, as Lutherans, we don’t read these things literally—you know that right?—so don’t go home and mutilate yourselves after church. But how are we supposed to take this?
He follows that up with saying that adultery is not just sleeping with someone you shouldn’t but the very thought of it—your fantasies themselves are adultery. As is divorce. This is extreme, man. Kind of like taking the Pharisees—the literalistic, religious establishment—even more seriously than they take themselves. It makes the Law pretty much impossible to follow, you know? And maybe that’s the point.
My husband says, Jesus was saying it’s not enough just to follow the rules, that following him, loving God, it’s a way of life. Can’t just check off the boxes, it’s about constant effort/work. Jesus is saying it’s about a different way of life. Being a Christian is not about rule-following—though there are certain things that we do and do not do—being a Christian is about living a different life. It’s about seeing hope where others see only failure. It’s about connecting to one another when the world says just do it for yourself. It’s about seeing something beyond our current situation, about seeing something bigger in everything we do—whether it’s raising our kids or tutoring someone or asking for change. It’s about not being alone and it’s about trying to be better.
And, more than that, it’s about God knowing that we can’t possibly fulfill it all. Jesus makes his point so extreme to point us towards God’s grace. It’s not about checking off boxes but about relying on God completely.
In my daughter’s case, she’ll figure out what rules she can break and what she can’t, just like she’ll figure out that no matter what she does, I will always love her. Seems like that’s the point of these lessons, that’s the point of talking about God as a Father, as Divine Parent. As human beings, we know what it is to be loved, but when we become parents, we know what it is to love so deeply that we are brought to our knees.
In another place, Jesus says he came to give us life and life abundantly. THIS is life abundant—to live for one another, to live with one another, sacrificing ourselves for each other and receiving each others’ sacrifices. THIS is life abundant—to return here every week to be filled with the bread of life. THIS is life abundant—to love one another as a mother loves her baby, to love one another as God loves us.
Amen.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
sunday's sermon--Isaiah 58.1-12
teach song “you shall be like a garden, like a deep spring whose waters never fail”
That’s so pretty—really, you guys, good singing.
But that’s not going to save you.
I’m sorry, but you heard Isaiah
—“day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.”
“as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness”
Brother Isaiah says we people here in church tonight,
we people want to know God,
love reading about him and singing about him,
love designing stained glass windows
and wearing fancy crosses around our necks,
as if we knew what God was really about.
As if we actually cared what God said
and did what God wanted.
We sing prettily as though what we sing
and what we do with our lives made a difference.
But it doesn’t.
Harsh.
Isaiah says as long as we argue and oppress
our prayers will not be heard.
Isaiah says IF we sacrifice ourselves for others
and work for their betterment,
THEN we’ll be that deep spring.
But not before.
Our worship here tonight is empty, pointless, he says,
if it is not accompanied by justice out there.
Harsh.
I’ve heard this before
—from high school students, from college students, from folks in bars—
church people are hypocrites,
church people don’t believe any of what they’re saying,
they’re just saying the same thing over and over and nothing changes.
Did you know that something like 75% of young people
in the Millennial generation
—those same young people who we want to be in our congregations,
with whom we want to share our passion for God
and worship and justice,
those young people have predominantly negative things
to say about the church?
According to research from the Barna Group
published in the book unChristian,
Christians are perceived as
judgmental, hypocritical, antigay,
too political, sheltered, and conversion-oriented.
Harsh.
It’s not like we haven’t done anything
—look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa
in the wake of apartheid
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
fostered thousands of difficult, truth-telling conversations
which have helped to heal the country.
Look at Christians’ role in reforming child labor laws in the 1800s.
Look at Habitat for Humanity
or any of thousands of soup kitchens, faith-based advocates, and literacy centers.
We do work for justice.
Mostly. Well, some. Not enough, that’s for sure.
And it doesn’t take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us that.
But maybe it does take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us the way out.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us a path of hope.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us how to practice righteousness
so God doesn’t have to say “as if.”
Brother Isaiah says that the religious practice God wants is
“to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”
He says, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house,
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
The religious practice God wants is
“…a daily fast from domination, blaming others, evil speech,
self-satisfaction, entitlement and blindness to one's privilege.”
The religious practice God wants is
our wasteful love given to everyone we meet.
Everyone is in need of justice and freedom,
everyone is hungry and thirsty for something,
everyone is naked and vulnerable—so go love them.
My Mormon friends tell me the practice in their churches is
for every member to have a job, a calling.
You move to a new town, you show up at your new church,
and you’re given a job to help the community
—both worship and outreach!—
to run smoothly.
They are to live out their worship in their relationships.
These same friends will also tell me that
the process of receiving your calling is flawed,
to say the least
—but isn’t that a bit of what Isaiah is pleading?
That we don’t simply show up for worship
and consider ourselves done.
That we don’t just put a dollar in a panhandler’s cup
and consider ourselves righteous.
That we live out our worship,
that we worship God with our lives, no matter what it costs us.
Through folks at the Edge campus ministry house at UC,
I know a woman who used to be homeless.
Truth be told, in some ways, she and her family
are still living as though they’re homeless.
They move from one crisis to the next, always on the verge of ruin.
Her 18-year-old son wants to go to college
—he’d be the first in several generations—
and some of my students and I are helping him apply.
To some, this is a small thing—fill out some paperwork, no big deal—
but to him, it’s everything.
And to me
—Alice Connor who can’t say no to anything
and who struggles to have enough time
to even hang out with her husband—
it’s a sacrifice.
But Lord knows, Isaiah and God didn’t say it would be easy.
To fall in love with Jesus,
to delight in Christian community is to sacrifice.
And when we’re practicing regularly, that sacrifice is a delight.
Seems to me that Isaiah has something else to say to us in the 21st century,
2600 years later.
Seems to me that when Isaiah says Israel needs to practice righteousness,
when he says “you,”
he’s not talking about a specific individual but about all of us.
When we give the $20 bill instead of the $1,
when we help a grown woman learn to read,
we’re not doing it for our own,
individual blessedness but as part of the body of Christ.
We are a deep spring whose waters never fail.
In doing as God asks, in taking risks,
we are fountains of divine love,
we are more deeply alive than if we were stagnant pools
concerned only with ourselves.
It’s about community.
We don’t do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God
and our neighbors because that will save us
—we are saved by grace alone.
And we don’t do them simply because they’re difficult
—we do them because of the joy we have in offering ourselves to others.
We do these things because we’ve received God’s grace,
not in order to receive it.
Our choices matter to God
because God doesn’t act in isolation any more than we do.
God expects us to participate in God’s life
of justice and creativity and delight.
God is, if you’ll go with the metaphor, the fountain
and we’re the drops of water.
Or God is the flashlight
and we are the photons of light, breaking forth like the dawn
This place, this building, this people, this table
—all are food for the journey.
Our worship at a particular moment in the week
fills us for our worship in every other moment.
So, be filled here,
so that y’all may be a fertile garden for your neighbors’ lives,
so that y’all may be a deep, cool, unfailing spring for the world.
sing “you shall be like a garden, like a deep spring whose waters never fail”
That’s so pretty—really, you guys, good singing.
But that’s not going to save you.
I’m sorry, but you heard Isaiah
—“day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.”
“as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness”
Brother Isaiah says we people here in church tonight,
we people want to know God,
love reading about him and singing about him,
love designing stained glass windows
and wearing fancy crosses around our necks,
as if we knew what God was really about.
As if we actually cared what God said
and did what God wanted.
We sing prettily as though what we sing
and what we do with our lives made a difference.
But it doesn’t.
Harsh.
Isaiah says as long as we argue and oppress
our prayers will not be heard.
Isaiah says IF we sacrifice ourselves for others
and work for their betterment,
THEN we’ll be that deep spring.
But not before.
Our worship here tonight is empty, pointless, he says,
if it is not accompanied by justice out there.
Harsh.
I’ve heard this before
—from high school students, from college students, from folks in bars—
church people are hypocrites,
church people don’t believe any of what they’re saying,
they’re just saying the same thing over and over and nothing changes.
Did you know that something like 75% of young people
in the Millennial generation
—those same young people who we want to be in our congregations,
with whom we want to share our passion for God
and worship and justice,
those young people have predominantly negative things
to say about the church?
According to research from the Barna Group
published in the book unChristian,
Christians are perceived as
judgmental, hypocritical, antigay,
too political, sheltered, and conversion-oriented.
Harsh.
It’s not like we haven’t done anything
—look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa
in the wake of apartheid
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
fostered thousands of difficult, truth-telling conversations
which have helped to heal the country.
Look at Christians’ role in reforming child labor laws in the 1800s.
Look at Habitat for Humanity
or any of thousands of soup kitchens, faith-based advocates, and literacy centers.
We do work for justice.
Mostly. Well, some. Not enough, that’s for sure.
And it doesn’t take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us that.
But maybe it does take a 6th century BCE prophet to show us the way out.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us a path of hope.
Maybe we need Isaiah to show us how to practice righteousness
so God doesn’t have to say “as if.”
Brother Isaiah says that the religious practice God wants is
“to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?”
He says, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house,
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
The religious practice God wants is
“…a daily fast from domination, blaming others, evil speech,
self-satisfaction, entitlement and blindness to one's privilege.”
The religious practice God wants is
our wasteful love given to everyone we meet.
Everyone is in need of justice and freedom,
everyone is hungry and thirsty for something,
everyone is naked and vulnerable—so go love them.
My Mormon friends tell me the practice in their churches is
for every member to have a job, a calling.
You move to a new town, you show up at your new church,
and you’re given a job to help the community
—both worship and outreach!—
to run smoothly.
They are to live out their worship in their relationships.
These same friends will also tell me that
the process of receiving your calling is flawed,
to say the least
—but isn’t that a bit of what Isaiah is pleading?
That we don’t simply show up for worship
and consider ourselves done.
That we don’t just put a dollar in a panhandler’s cup
and consider ourselves righteous.
That we live out our worship,
that we worship God with our lives, no matter what it costs us.
Through folks at the Edge campus ministry house at UC,
I know a woman who used to be homeless.
Truth be told, in some ways, she and her family
are still living as though they’re homeless.
They move from one crisis to the next, always on the verge of ruin.
Her 18-year-old son wants to go to college
—he’d be the first in several generations—
and some of my students and I are helping him apply.
To some, this is a small thing—fill out some paperwork, no big deal—
but to him, it’s everything.
And to me
—Alice Connor who can’t say no to anything
and who struggles to have enough time
to even hang out with her husband—
it’s a sacrifice.
But Lord knows, Isaiah and God didn’t say it would be easy.
To fall in love with Jesus,
to delight in Christian community is to sacrifice.
And when we’re practicing regularly, that sacrifice is a delight.
Seems to me that Isaiah has something else to say to us in the 21st century,
2600 years later.
Seems to me that when Isaiah says Israel needs to practice righteousness,
when he says “you,”
he’s not talking about a specific individual but about all of us.
When we give the $20 bill instead of the $1,
when we help a grown woman learn to read,
we’re not doing it for our own,
individual blessedness but as part of the body of Christ.
We are a deep spring whose waters never fail.
In doing as God asks, in taking risks,
we are fountains of divine love,
we are more deeply alive than if we were stagnant pools
concerned only with ourselves.
It’s about community.
We don’t do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God
and our neighbors because that will save us
—we are saved by grace alone.
And we don’t do them simply because they’re difficult
—we do them because of the joy we have in offering ourselves to others.
We do these things because we’ve received God’s grace,
not in order to receive it.
Our choices matter to God
because God doesn’t act in isolation any more than we do.
God expects us to participate in God’s life
of justice and creativity and delight.
God is, if you’ll go with the metaphor, the fountain
and we’re the drops of water.
Or God is the flashlight
and we are the photons of light, breaking forth like the dawn
This place, this building, this people, this table
—all are food for the journey.
Our worship at a particular moment in the week
fills us for our worship in every other moment.
So, be filled here,
so that y’all may be a fertile garden for your neighbors’ lives,
so that y’all may be a deep, cool, unfailing spring for the world.
sing “you shall be like a garden, like a deep spring whose waters never fail”
Sunday, January 23, 2011
sunday's sermon--Matthew 4:12-23
Asterixes indicate where I would show the congregation a charmingly hand-drawn image on a large card to illustrate the point. Typically something silly or sarcastic. Use your imagination.
* * *
Once upon a time, brothers Simon and Andrew were fishing—because they were fishermen, the Gospel tells us. And similarly, brothers James and John—the Sons of Thunder, the Gospel tells us—were mending their nets. And then this Jesus comes by, calls them to follow, and they do. No objections, no stalling, no complaints. Or none that the writer tells us about anyway. And we’re supposed to take this as some kind of model, I suppose, along the same lines as the saints. Look how obedient they were, look how much more they loved God than you do. Or something. God calls, we go, no objections, no stalling, no complaints. No, “my daughter’s still at daycare—let me pick her up and take her home to her daddy first”. No “but Jesus, I’m working at living out your message at my work and I’ve had a bunch of promising conversations with some coworkers about faith and I thought you’d called me here”. No, “seriously, Jesus, this is going to be difficult—I don’t think I’m ready for it.” Simon and Andrew and James and John just went and that’s what we’re supposed to do.
But I want to know what happened in that moment when Jesus called that switched those men from fishing to following. Had they already heard of this Jesus? Had they even heard him speak? Had they been wondering for some time if fishing was what God wanted them for? And that moment of change—switching from one worldview to another, recognizing a call from God—how does that happen?
I have a theory that it’s like magnets*. You’ve played with them, right? You put the two North ends together and they repel each other. You can force them to touch if they’re small enough, but you can let them just hover near each other, you pressing them together while they push each other apart. It feels like there’s something between them, something tangible, something bigger than just holding two magnets. It has energy and, it seems, life.
There’s a theological space that’s like this, one that’s difficult to express and sometimes difficult even to see when you’re in it. It’s called a liminal space, liminal meaning a threshold between two states—it’s a place where you’re not entirely in one or another space but between them—like standing smack in the middle of a doorway*. Liminal space—the space between—is like this:
• Have you ever had to sleep in a bed* with someone you didn’t care for much? Maybe at summer camp or a retreat, maybe on a family vacation with a sibling or snoring aunt. And you spent the night trying to be as far away as possible from them, stealing the covers but never touching. That space between you becomes almost tangible, especially in delirious sleepless hours.
• Or, closer to home, you may have noticed Pastor Jess hanging around over the last couple months—coming to worship, saying hello in the lobby, carrying the ever-present cup of coffee—and you might think, “didn’t we say goodbye to him? I thought he was going to Iraq?”* Well, he is, but deployment is a curious thing. You say your goodbyes to your community, but you don’t put boots on the ground til months later. You’re gone, but you’re still here. The space between being gone and being here can be awkward and it can be a gift. To live in that space between two things is sometimes to see the truth about both of them.
• I had a moment of this kind of awkwardness this week. I invited my next-door neighbors to church*. And, since I don’t do it that often, I stumbled a bit over my words. We are friends, my neighbors and I, our daughters play together and we chat about politics and the weather and things. But we’ve never talked about specifically religious things. And I found myself trying to cross the space between those things and floundering. I was nervous to be sure. I felt a bit like I was standing between two big magnets,* my body and soul vibrating with the energy between them, living in a somehow more real and more bizarre space. I’m not sure if I was able to cross over that space between us. Time will tell.
• Sometimes we can’t cross that space between us. When a relationship ends*—because of divorce, the break-up of a friendship, or even death—we still feel the presence of the relationship, but cannot cross the space between. What was between us to start with had grown large and intense and looms even larger at an ending. How can we reach across, even to touch a shoulder? How can we reach across and bring them back? Or when a relationship begins*, or is on the cusp of beginning, or when we simply want it to begin, that liminal space is there again. Our desire for another person—friend, romantic partner—is like a bubble of energy between us. I desire your friendship, but we don’t know one another well enough yet and so I can’t quite touch. I have a crush on you but you’re with someone else—so close and yet so far.
• One of my students at the Edge House at UC—who, incidentally, you’ll probably meet when you come to our NOSH at Good Shepherd event next Sunday as I know you’re all planning to do—one of my students struggles with being called by scriptural stories*. He reads and understands them, of course, but can’t quite cross over the boundary between story and self. Sometimes he recognizes himself in them but that recognition doesn’t lead him to a deeper understanding of the text or himself. I say he struggles, because he doesn’t give up—he lives in the space between.
• One of those stories we’ve been talking about at the Edge House is the Exodus, a story of God calling God’s people into the wilderness*, a liminal space. Consider that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt and when God liberated them, they spent 40 years wandering and complaining about it. They looked backward to their bondage, to their homes and gardens, and whitewashed their experience of slavery. “If only we could go back, this desert liberation is terrible, we’ll never get to the Promised Land.” The wilderness is the space between Egypt and Canaan, the space between bondage and liberation, the space between known and unknown. God called them into something more, something greater than what they had been living, and they went. Mostly willingly.
But, you see, it’s more complex than God calling and our going. There’s this space that we can feel intensely, that we know is there but which we can only describe in story, where the very air is alive and we are both enlivened and frightened. This space between, this liminal space, is where we meet God. Our Celtic Christian brothers and sisters call this a thin place,* a place and time where the world as we know it is so thin that God almost breaks through, like pressing your fingers into a balloon or the place in your pb&j where the jelly soaks almost through your bread. God seems more real, closer, more intense here than anywhere else.
And sometimes we notice it and sometimes we don’t. It’s not like everyone who’s been through a divorce* says “yup, that last, worst argument, with the throwing of vases and the hurtful words, what a liminal space that was” yet God is there, unseen but almost tangible like the space between the magnets.*
This is what happened for Simon and Andrew and James and John—what happened between the moment of fishing and the moment of following Jesus? What shifted in their minds and hearts that they were able to just walk towards him? What has to shift in our minds and hearts that we can do the same? It’s this: the world is not an either/or proposition. It’s “YES, and…?”. The world we live in is not cut and dried, it’s in process, and the call of the good God who created everything is always “YES, and…?”. Maybe Simon and Andrew and James and John were aware of their competing urges—stay home and fish, it’s what you know, you’ll never be anything else vs. there’s something amazing/entrancing/transformative about this Jesus. And in the space between those things, they saw God standing before them, calling them into something greater. Calling them to follow—YES, and to be fishermen for people.
Consider, today, what spaces between you’re living in. Consider how we might be wandering in our own deserts and what Promised Land we’re walking towards. When you’re overwhelmed or anxious or delighted, listen for God saying, “follow me, follow me,” especially when you’re not ready. And listen for God saying “YES, and…?” with a delight that we cannot resist. Watch for God showing up in the spaces between and saying, “come and see!”
* * *
Once upon a time, brothers Simon and Andrew were fishing—because they were fishermen, the Gospel tells us. And similarly, brothers James and John—the Sons of Thunder, the Gospel tells us—were mending their nets. And then this Jesus comes by, calls them to follow, and they do. No objections, no stalling, no complaints. Or none that the writer tells us about anyway. And we’re supposed to take this as some kind of model, I suppose, along the same lines as the saints. Look how obedient they were, look how much more they loved God than you do. Or something. God calls, we go, no objections, no stalling, no complaints. No, “my daughter’s still at daycare—let me pick her up and take her home to her daddy first”. No “but Jesus, I’m working at living out your message at my work and I’ve had a bunch of promising conversations with some coworkers about faith and I thought you’d called me here”. No, “seriously, Jesus, this is going to be difficult—I don’t think I’m ready for it.” Simon and Andrew and James and John just went and that’s what we’re supposed to do.
But I want to know what happened in that moment when Jesus called that switched those men from fishing to following. Had they already heard of this Jesus? Had they even heard him speak? Had they been wondering for some time if fishing was what God wanted them for? And that moment of change—switching from one worldview to another, recognizing a call from God—how does that happen?
I have a theory that it’s like magnets*. You’ve played with them, right? You put the two North ends together and they repel each other. You can force them to touch if they’re small enough, but you can let them just hover near each other, you pressing them together while they push each other apart. It feels like there’s something between them, something tangible, something bigger than just holding two magnets. It has energy and, it seems, life.
There’s a theological space that’s like this, one that’s difficult to express and sometimes difficult even to see when you’re in it. It’s called a liminal space, liminal meaning a threshold between two states—it’s a place where you’re not entirely in one or another space but between them—like standing smack in the middle of a doorway*. Liminal space—the space between—is like this:
• Have you ever had to sleep in a bed* with someone you didn’t care for much? Maybe at summer camp or a retreat, maybe on a family vacation with a sibling or snoring aunt. And you spent the night trying to be as far away as possible from them, stealing the covers but never touching. That space between you becomes almost tangible, especially in delirious sleepless hours.
• Or, closer to home, you may have noticed Pastor Jess hanging around over the last couple months—coming to worship, saying hello in the lobby, carrying the ever-present cup of coffee—and you might think, “didn’t we say goodbye to him? I thought he was going to Iraq?”* Well, he is, but deployment is a curious thing. You say your goodbyes to your community, but you don’t put boots on the ground til months later. You’re gone, but you’re still here. The space between being gone and being here can be awkward and it can be a gift. To live in that space between two things is sometimes to see the truth about both of them.
• I had a moment of this kind of awkwardness this week. I invited my next-door neighbors to church*. And, since I don’t do it that often, I stumbled a bit over my words. We are friends, my neighbors and I, our daughters play together and we chat about politics and the weather and things. But we’ve never talked about specifically religious things. And I found myself trying to cross the space between those things and floundering. I was nervous to be sure. I felt a bit like I was standing between two big magnets,* my body and soul vibrating with the energy between them, living in a somehow more real and more bizarre space. I’m not sure if I was able to cross over that space between us. Time will tell.
• Sometimes we can’t cross that space between us. When a relationship ends*—because of divorce, the break-up of a friendship, or even death—we still feel the presence of the relationship, but cannot cross the space between. What was between us to start with had grown large and intense and looms even larger at an ending. How can we reach across, even to touch a shoulder? How can we reach across and bring them back? Or when a relationship begins*, or is on the cusp of beginning, or when we simply want it to begin, that liminal space is there again. Our desire for another person—friend, romantic partner—is like a bubble of energy between us. I desire your friendship, but we don’t know one another well enough yet and so I can’t quite touch. I have a crush on you but you’re with someone else—so close and yet so far.
• One of my students at the Edge House at UC—who, incidentally, you’ll probably meet when you come to our NOSH at Good Shepherd event next Sunday as I know you’re all planning to do—one of my students struggles with being called by scriptural stories*. He reads and understands them, of course, but can’t quite cross over the boundary between story and self. Sometimes he recognizes himself in them but that recognition doesn’t lead him to a deeper understanding of the text or himself. I say he struggles, because he doesn’t give up—he lives in the space between.
• One of those stories we’ve been talking about at the Edge House is the Exodus, a story of God calling God’s people into the wilderness*, a liminal space. Consider that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt and when God liberated them, they spent 40 years wandering and complaining about it. They looked backward to their bondage, to their homes and gardens, and whitewashed their experience of slavery. “If only we could go back, this desert liberation is terrible, we’ll never get to the Promised Land.” The wilderness is the space between Egypt and Canaan, the space between bondage and liberation, the space between known and unknown. God called them into something more, something greater than what they had been living, and they went. Mostly willingly.
But, you see, it’s more complex than God calling and our going. There’s this space that we can feel intensely, that we know is there but which we can only describe in story, where the very air is alive and we are both enlivened and frightened. This space between, this liminal space, is where we meet God. Our Celtic Christian brothers and sisters call this a thin place,* a place and time where the world as we know it is so thin that God almost breaks through, like pressing your fingers into a balloon or the place in your pb&j where the jelly soaks almost through your bread. God seems more real, closer, more intense here than anywhere else.
And sometimes we notice it and sometimes we don’t. It’s not like everyone who’s been through a divorce* says “yup, that last, worst argument, with the throwing of vases and the hurtful words, what a liminal space that was” yet God is there, unseen but almost tangible like the space between the magnets.*
This is what happened for Simon and Andrew and James and John—what happened between the moment of fishing and the moment of following Jesus? What shifted in their minds and hearts that they were able to just walk towards him? What has to shift in our minds and hearts that we can do the same? It’s this: the world is not an either/or proposition. It’s “YES, and…?”. The world we live in is not cut and dried, it’s in process, and the call of the good God who created everything is always “YES, and…?”. Maybe Simon and Andrew and James and John were aware of their competing urges—stay home and fish, it’s what you know, you’ll never be anything else vs. there’s something amazing/entrancing/transformative about this Jesus. And in the space between those things, they saw God standing before them, calling them into something greater. Calling them to follow—YES, and to be fishermen for people.
Consider, today, what spaces between you’re living in. Consider how we might be wandering in our own deserts and what Promised Land we’re walking towards. When you’re overwhelmed or anxious or delighted, listen for God saying, “follow me, follow me,” especially when you’re not ready. And listen for God saying “YES, and…?” with a delight that we cannot resist. Watch for God showing up in the spaces between and saying, “come and see!”
Saturday, January 22, 2011
sunday's sermon--Matthew 4:12-23--DRAFT
Asterixes stand for cards with simple line drawings on the as a visual aid.
Simon and Andrew were fishing, because they were fishermen, the Gospel tells us. And similarly James and John were mending their nets. And then this Jesus comes by, calls them to follow, and they do. No objections, no stalling, no complaints. Or none that the writer tells us about anyway. And we’re supposed to take this as some kind of model, I suppose, along the same lines as the saints. Look how obedient they were, look how much more they loved God than you do. Or something. God calls, we go, no objections, no stalling, no complaints. No, “my daughter’s still at daycare—let me pick her up and take her home to her daddy first”. No “but Jesus, I’m working at living out your message at my work and I’ve had a bunch of promising conversations with some coworkers about faith and I thought you’d called me here”. No, “seriously, Jesus, this is going to be difficult—I don’t think I’m ready for it.” Simon and Andrew and James and John just went and that’s what we’re supposed to do.
But I want to know what happened in that moment when Jesus called that switched those men from fishing to following. Had they already heard of this Jesus? Had they even heard him speak? Had they been wondering for some time if fishing was what God wanted them for? And that moment of change—switching from one worldview to another, recognizing a call from God—how does that happen?
I have a theory that it’s like magnets*. You’ve played with them, right? You put the two North ends together and they repel each other. You can force them to touch if they’re small enough, but you can let them just hover near each other, you pressing them together while they push each other apart. It feels like there’s something between them, something tangible, something bigger than just holding two magnets. It has energy and, it seems, life.
There’s a theological space that’s like this, one that’s difficult to express and sometimes difficult even to see when you’re in it. It’s called a liminal space, liminal meaning a threshold between two states—it’s a place where you’re not entirely in one or another space but between them—like standing smack in the middle of a doorway*. Liminal space—the space between—is like this:
• Have you ever had to sleep in a bed* with someone you didn’t care for much? Maybe at summer camp or a retreat, maybe on a family vacation with a sibling or snoring aunt. And you spent the night trying to be as far away as possible from them, stealing the covers but never touching. That space between you becomes almost tangible, especially in delirious sleepless hours.
• Or, closer to home, you may have noticed Pastor Jess hanging around over the last couple months—coming to worship, saying hello in the lobby, carrying the ever-present cup of coffee—and you might think, “didn’t we say goodbye to him? I thought he was going to Iraq?”* Well, he is, but deployment is a curious thing. You say your goodbyes to your community, but you don’t put boots on the ground til months later. You’re gone, but you’re still here. The space between being gone and being here can be awkward and it can be a gift. To live in that space between two things is sometimes to see the truth about both of them.
• I had a moment of this kind of awkwardness this week. I invited my next-door neighbors to church*. And, since I don’t do it that often, I stumbled a bit over my words. We are friends, my neighbors and I, our daughters play together and we chat about politics and the weather and things. But we’ve never talked about specifically religious things. And I found myself trying to cross the space between those things and floundering. I was nervous to be sure. I felt a bit like I was standing between two big magnets,* my body and soul vibrating with the energy between them, living in a somehow more real and more bizarre space. I’m not sure if I was able to cross over that space between us. Time will tell.
• Sometimes we can’t cross that space between us. When a relationship ends—because of divorce, the break-up of a friendship, or even death—we still feel the presence of the relationship, but cannot cross the space between. What was between us to start with had grown large and intense and looms even larger at an ending. How can we reach across, even to touch a shoulder? How can we reach across and bring them back? Or when a relationship begins, or is on the cusp of beginning, or when we simply want it to begin, that liminal space is there again. Our desire for another person—friend, romantic partner—is like a bubble of energy between us. I desire your friendship, but we don’t know one another well enough yet and so I can’t quite touch. I have a crush on you but you’re with someone else—so close and yet so far.
• One of my students at the Edge House at UC—who, incidentally, you’ll probably meet when you come to our NOSH at Good Shepherd event next Sunday as I know you’re all planning to do—one of my students struggles with being called by scriptural stories. He reads and understands them, of course, but can’t quite cross over the boundary between story and self. Sometimes he recognizes himself in them but that recognition doesn’t lead him to a deeper understanding of the text or himself. I say he struggles, because he doesn’t give up—he lives in the space between.
• One of those stories we’ve been talking about at the Edge House is the Exodus, a story of God calling God’s people into a liminal space. Consider that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt and when God liberated them, they spent 40 years wandering and complaining about it. They looked backward to their bondage, to their homes and gardens, and whitewashed their experience of slavery. “If only we could go back, this desert liberation is terrible, we’ll never get to the Promised Land.” The wilderness is the space between Egypt and Canaan, the space between bondage and liberation, the space between known and unknown. God called them into something more, something greater than what they had been living, and they went. Mostly willingly.
But, you see, it’s more complex than God calling and our going. There’s more happening between us and God, more space between us where the very air is alive and we are both enlivened and frightened. There’s this space that we can feel intensely, that we know is there but which we can only describe in story. This space between, this liminal space, is where we meet God. Our Celtic Christian brothers and sisters call this a thin place,* a place and time where the world as we know it is so thin that God almost breaks through, like pressing your fingers into a balloon or the place in your pb&j where the jelly soaks almost through your bread. God seems more real, closer, more intense here than anywhere else.
And sometimes we notice it and sometimes we don’t. It’s not like everyone who’s been through a divorce* says “yup, that last, worst argument, with the throwing of vases and the hurtful words, what a liminal space that was” yet God is there, unseen but almost tangible like the space between the magnets.*
This is what happened for Simon and Andrew and James and John—they were fishing and this guy Jesus showed up and all of a sudden they were in a space between. And they knew it…what happened between the moment of fishing and the moment of following Jesus? What shifted in their minds and hearts that they were able to just walk towards him? What has to shift in our minds and hearts that we can do the same?
For Simon and Andrew and James and John, it seems that they knew they were in that liminal space. They maybe were aware of the competing urges—stay home and fish, it’s what you know vs. there’s something amazing about this Jesus. And in the space between those things, they saw God standing before them, calling them into something greater. Consider, today, what spaces between you’re living in. Consider paying attention to how people stand or what they don’t say. Notice when something feels awkward or particularly buoyant. Consider how we might be wandering in our own deserts and what Promised Land we’re walking towards. When you’re overwhelmed or anxious or delighted, listen for God saying, “follow me, follow me” and “come and see” with a delight that we cannot resist. Watch for God showing up in the spaces between and saying, “come and see!” Paying attention doesn’t make God more likely to show up, but it does make us more likely to see him when he does.
Simon and Andrew were fishing, because they were fishermen, the Gospel tells us. And similarly James and John were mending their nets. And then this Jesus comes by, calls them to follow, and they do. No objections, no stalling, no complaints. Or none that the writer tells us about anyway. And we’re supposed to take this as some kind of model, I suppose, along the same lines as the saints. Look how obedient they were, look how much more they loved God than you do. Or something. God calls, we go, no objections, no stalling, no complaints. No, “my daughter’s still at daycare—let me pick her up and take her home to her daddy first”. No “but Jesus, I’m working at living out your message at my work and I’ve had a bunch of promising conversations with some coworkers about faith and I thought you’d called me here”. No, “seriously, Jesus, this is going to be difficult—I don’t think I’m ready for it.” Simon and Andrew and James and John just went and that’s what we’re supposed to do.
But I want to know what happened in that moment when Jesus called that switched those men from fishing to following. Had they already heard of this Jesus? Had they even heard him speak? Had they been wondering for some time if fishing was what God wanted them for? And that moment of change—switching from one worldview to another, recognizing a call from God—how does that happen?
I have a theory that it’s like magnets*. You’ve played with them, right? You put the two North ends together and they repel each other. You can force them to touch if they’re small enough, but you can let them just hover near each other, you pressing them together while they push each other apart. It feels like there’s something between them, something tangible, something bigger than just holding two magnets. It has energy and, it seems, life.
There’s a theological space that’s like this, one that’s difficult to express and sometimes difficult even to see when you’re in it. It’s called a liminal space, liminal meaning a threshold between two states—it’s a place where you’re not entirely in one or another space but between them—like standing smack in the middle of a doorway*. Liminal space—the space between—is like this:
• Have you ever had to sleep in a bed* with someone you didn’t care for much? Maybe at summer camp or a retreat, maybe on a family vacation with a sibling or snoring aunt. And you spent the night trying to be as far away as possible from them, stealing the covers but never touching. That space between you becomes almost tangible, especially in delirious sleepless hours.
• Or, closer to home, you may have noticed Pastor Jess hanging around over the last couple months—coming to worship, saying hello in the lobby, carrying the ever-present cup of coffee—and you might think, “didn’t we say goodbye to him? I thought he was going to Iraq?”* Well, he is, but deployment is a curious thing. You say your goodbyes to your community, but you don’t put boots on the ground til months later. You’re gone, but you’re still here. The space between being gone and being here can be awkward and it can be a gift. To live in that space between two things is sometimes to see the truth about both of them.
• I had a moment of this kind of awkwardness this week. I invited my next-door neighbors to church*. And, since I don’t do it that often, I stumbled a bit over my words. We are friends, my neighbors and I, our daughters play together and we chat about politics and the weather and things. But we’ve never talked about specifically religious things. And I found myself trying to cross the space between those things and floundering. I was nervous to be sure. I felt a bit like I was standing between two big magnets,* my body and soul vibrating with the energy between them, living in a somehow more real and more bizarre space. I’m not sure if I was able to cross over that space between us. Time will tell.
• Sometimes we can’t cross that space between us. When a relationship ends—because of divorce, the break-up of a friendship, or even death—we still feel the presence of the relationship, but cannot cross the space between. What was between us to start with had grown large and intense and looms even larger at an ending. How can we reach across, even to touch a shoulder? How can we reach across and bring them back? Or when a relationship begins, or is on the cusp of beginning, or when we simply want it to begin, that liminal space is there again. Our desire for another person—friend, romantic partner—is like a bubble of energy between us. I desire your friendship, but we don’t know one another well enough yet and so I can’t quite touch. I have a crush on you but you’re with someone else—so close and yet so far.
• One of my students at the Edge House at UC—who, incidentally, you’ll probably meet when you come to our NOSH at Good Shepherd event next Sunday as I know you’re all planning to do—one of my students struggles with being called by scriptural stories. He reads and understands them, of course, but can’t quite cross over the boundary between story and self. Sometimes he recognizes himself in them but that recognition doesn’t lead him to a deeper understanding of the text or himself. I say he struggles, because he doesn’t give up—he lives in the space between.
• One of those stories we’ve been talking about at the Edge House is the Exodus, a story of God calling God’s people into a liminal space. Consider that the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt and when God liberated them, they spent 40 years wandering and complaining about it. They looked backward to their bondage, to their homes and gardens, and whitewashed their experience of slavery. “If only we could go back, this desert liberation is terrible, we’ll never get to the Promised Land.” The wilderness is the space between Egypt and Canaan, the space between bondage and liberation, the space between known and unknown. God called them into something more, something greater than what they had been living, and they went. Mostly willingly.
But, you see, it’s more complex than God calling and our going. There’s more happening between us and God, more space between us where the very air is alive and we are both enlivened and frightened. There’s this space that we can feel intensely, that we know is there but which we can only describe in story. This space between, this liminal space, is where we meet God. Our Celtic Christian brothers and sisters call this a thin place,* a place and time where the world as we know it is so thin that God almost breaks through, like pressing your fingers into a balloon or the place in your pb&j where the jelly soaks almost through your bread. God seems more real, closer, more intense here than anywhere else.
And sometimes we notice it and sometimes we don’t. It’s not like everyone who’s been through a divorce* says “yup, that last, worst argument, with the throwing of vases and the hurtful words, what a liminal space that was” yet God is there, unseen but almost tangible like the space between the magnets.*
This is what happened for Simon and Andrew and James and John—they were fishing and this guy Jesus showed up and all of a sudden they were in a space between. And they knew it…what happened between the moment of fishing and the moment of following Jesus? What shifted in their minds and hearts that they were able to just walk towards him? What has to shift in our minds and hearts that we can do the same?
For Simon and Andrew and James and John, it seems that they knew they were in that liminal space. They maybe were aware of the competing urges—stay home and fish, it’s what you know vs. there’s something amazing about this Jesus. And in the space between those things, they saw God standing before them, calling them into something greater. Consider, today, what spaces between you’re living in. Consider paying attention to how people stand or what they don’t say. Notice when something feels awkward or particularly buoyant. Consider how we might be wandering in our own deserts and what Promised Land we’re walking towards. When you’re overwhelmed or anxious or delighted, listen for God saying, “follow me, follow me” and “come and see” with a delight that we cannot resist. Watch for God showing up in the spaces between and saying, “come and see!” Paying attention doesn’t make God more likely to show up, but it does make us more likely to see him when he does.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
good poetry
good poetry makes my skin prickle--sometimes a slow build like falling in love, sometimes all of a sudden, like an orgasm.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like an icy, loving hand caressing an inch from my skin.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--"not with a bang but a whimper," "like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs," "my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like the Holy Spirit is about, making trouble and laughing.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like all the creation's truth is in those few words.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like an icy, loving hand caressing an inch from my skin.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--"not with a bang but a whimper," "like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs," "my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like the Holy Spirit is about, making trouble and laughing.
good poetry makes my skin prickle--like all the creation's truth is in those few words.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
sunday's sermon--Matthew 24:36-44
“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
Reminds me of the prayer in Compline that lots of people love:
Keep watch, dear lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night…
Keep watch—remember, don’t forget about
or stay awake, don’t fall asleep, wake up!
You may have heard something else in today’s gospel reading
“Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding meal together;
one will be taken and one will be left.”
What does that mean?
That isn’t what I think it is, is it?
Is it like those bumper stickers you see:
“Warning: in case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned.”
Meaning what?
That the driver (and presumably the other riders)
are saved/forgiven/righteous
And therefore will be taken up to heaven in The End
Leaving the rest of us behind?
There’s a little problem here
How do you know your car will be unmanned?
I work at the Edge Campus Ministry House at UC
Our housekeeper says she grew up in a church where
only the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation
could take communion—and she wasn’t one of them
How do you know when it’ll happen when Jesus explicitly says you can’t?
How do you know YOU are righteous and others aren’t?
And if you DO know that your righteousness is so great,
Isn’t that the sin of pride,
landing you smack back in the driver’s seat?
I’m not joking here
A substantial portion of Christians believe that
one day, all the believers will be caught up into the sky,
leaving their families and lives behind to fend for themselves
in the coming Tribulation.
Is it real?
Can we pin it down to a date or plan of action? Not really
There isn’t much in the Bible and the concept
and term Rapture came into being in 1800s
what’s Jesus talking about?
Since the story of Noah and his family being saved from the flood
Comes right before
Maybe the ones who are spared are the ones left behind
“taken” might mean punished rather than spared
I’m not going to tell you what it means—surprise, surprise…
The point ≠ knowing the time or who or what is happening
The point is to focus on the here and now
Keep awake, keep watch, pay attention, wake up!
God is on the move
Like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
God is working and will surprise you
“you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”
You don’t even know what God will look like!
When you see God, it will not be as you expect
It will not be to exclude the unrighteous like the Rapture
And it won’t be all love and peace and harmony like we want either
God moves when you least expect it
A lot of folks were upset about The Golden Compass, a movie based on the book by Philip Pullman
Some are concerned that it has themes of atheism
and downright hostility towards the church
They’re right
But I met God in reading the books nonetheless
We don’t expect to see God in atheists or in movies
and then God shows up saying, “pay attention—wake up!”
maybe you’ve heard someone say
“Christians don’t want to see murderers and rapists in prison
being entertained, using fancy gyms or libraries,
or being given comfort and compassion.”
In the words of St. Johnny Cash,
“then maybe they ain’t Christian”
The experiences these men and women have behind bars
Are beyond our knowing
And God lives there with them
Looking at us through the bars saying,
“pay attention—wake up”
most of us really don’t expect to see peace in the Middle East
we pray and hope but deep in our hearts,
we don’t see Jerusalem ever being at unity with itself
as the Psalm says
yet we keep trying, multi-laterally, for a solution
no matter what boats get fired upon
or who moves into the West Bank
what do you see in that as you keep watch this Advent?
My youth group used to volunteer at the Comm. Land Co-op in the West End
We spent hours hours loading a dumpsters with broken bricks and concrete
Demolishing a wall in a dark, scary basement
And removing a water-damaged ceiling
All to help prepare a house as affordable housing for a low-income Cincinnatian
if you’ve ever spent much time doing demolition on an old, dirty house
you know it’s hard, filthy work
We all ended up with black soot streaking our faces and clothing
face masks keep it out of your lungs
but also make the air you breathe hot and moist
Fogging up your glasses
The basement is moist and smelly and not a little creepy
And then you take a break—go outside for a moment
Emerging from the dust and muck and darkness and closeness
the cold air is crisp and focuses your mind immediately
wake up!
What Jesus is talking about in Matthew’s gospel is waking up
Waking up to the world around you
The relationships, the arguments, the beauty
How aware are you of your contribution to a problem?
How aware are you of another person’s feelings in a given moment?
How aware are you of the presence of God, of the movement of God?
God is on the move
Nudging us towards what is right, sometimes shoving us
Think about when you’re driving
And you drift a little into the next lane, not really paying attention
And something pulls you back
Your skin prickles unpleasantly
You sort of “come to”
You pull over into your own lane
And a car whizzes by within inches
Or seeing into the hearts of those you consider your enemies
School adversaries, your boss or co-workers, even political radicals
Have you had a moment when you suddenly saw them
In their vulnerability
Doing or saying something that you yourself have done?
Suddenly understanding their motives
No matter how much you disagree?
This is awareness—this is being awake, keeping watch
This is what Advent is for
We are waiting for the birth of our savior
And even though we know the end of the story
—Christmas and stars and sheep and the baby—
We can’t forget the process of getting there
Advent is about waiting and keeping watch
Mary’s still pregnant, remember
As are we—pregnant with possibility
Expecting the unexpected
Observing for a moment what we’ve done so far
and letting the things we might do next unfold gestate
this Advent season,
I invite you to keep watch each day
Take 10 minutes every day just to sit and watch
And be aware of who you are
And whose you are
Take 10 minutes every day
to ask yourself what you’re waiting for
take a step back
breathe in that crisp, cold air outside of your busy, close, dark life
look for patterns
look for God moving in your life and in the life of the world
Keep awake therefore Pay attention Wake up!
Reminds me of the prayer in Compline that lots of people love:
Keep watch, dear lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night…
Keep watch—remember, don’t forget about
or stay awake, don’t fall asleep, wake up!
You may have heard something else in today’s gospel reading
“Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding meal together;
one will be taken and one will be left.”
What does that mean?
That isn’t what I think it is, is it?
Is it like those bumper stickers you see:
“Warning: in case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned.”
Meaning what?
That the driver (and presumably the other riders)
are saved/forgiven/righteous
And therefore will be taken up to heaven in The End
Leaving the rest of us behind?
There’s a little problem here
How do you know your car will be unmanned?
I work at the Edge Campus Ministry House at UC
Our housekeeper says she grew up in a church where
only the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation
could take communion—and she wasn’t one of them
How do you know when it’ll happen when Jesus explicitly says you can’t?
How do you know YOU are righteous and others aren’t?
And if you DO know that your righteousness is so great,
Isn’t that the sin of pride,
landing you smack back in the driver’s seat?
I’m not joking here
A substantial portion of Christians believe that
one day, all the believers will be caught up into the sky,
leaving their families and lives behind to fend for themselves
in the coming Tribulation.
Is it real?
Can we pin it down to a date or plan of action? Not really
There isn’t much in the Bible and the concept
and term Rapture came into being in 1800s
what’s Jesus talking about?
Since the story of Noah and his family being saved from the flood
Comes right before
Maybe the ones who are spared are the ones left behind
“taken” might mean punished rather than spared
I’m not going to tell you what it means—surprise, surprise…
The point ≠ knowing the time or who or what is happening
The point is to focus on the here and now
Keep awake, keep watch, pay attention, wake up!
God is on the move
Like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
God is working and will surprise you
“you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”
You don’t even know what God will look like!
When you see God, it will not be as you expect
It will not be to exclude the unrighteous like the Rapture
And it won’t be all love and peace and harmony like we want either
God moves when you least expect it
A lot of folks were upset about The Golden Compass, a movie based on the book by Philip Pullman
Some are concerned that it has themes of atheism
and downright hostility towards the church
They’re right
But I met God in reading the books nonetheless
We don’t expect to see God in atheists or in movies
and then God shows up saying, “pay attention—wake up!”
maybe you’ve heard someone say
“Christians don’t want to see murderers and rapists in prison
being entertained, using fancy gyms or libraries,
or being given comfort and compassion.”
In the words of St. Johnny Cash,
“then maybe they ain’t Christian”
The experiences these men and women have behind bars
Are beyond our knowing
And God lives there with them
Looking at us through the bars saying,
“pay attention—wake up”
most of us really don’t expect to see peace in the Middle East
we pray and hope but deep in our hearts,
we don’t see Jerusalem ever being at unity with itself
as the Psalm says
yet we keep trying, multi-laterally, for a solution
no matter what boats get fired upon
or who moves into the West Bank
what do you see in that as you keep watch this Advent?
My youth group used to volunteer at the Comm. Land Co-op in the West End
We spent hours hours loading a dumpsters with broken bricks and concrete
Demolishing a wall in a dark, scary basement
And removing a water-damaged ceiling
All to help prepare a house as affordable housing for a low-income Cincinnatian
if you’ve ever spent much time doing demolition on an old, dirty house
you know it’s hard, filthy work
We all ended up with black soot streaking our faces and clothing
face masks keep it out of your lungs
but also make the air you breathe hot and moist
Fogging up your glasses
The basement is moist and smelly and not a little creepy
And then you take a break—go outside for a moment
Emerging from the dust and muck and darkness and closeness
the cold air is crisp and focuses your mind immediately
wake up!
What Jesus is talking about in Matthew’s gospel is waking up
Waking up to the world around you
The relationships, the arguments, the beauty
How aware are you of your contribution to a problem?
How aware are you of another person’s feelings in a given moment?
How aware are you of the presence of God, of the movement of God?
God is on the move
Nudging us towards what is right, sometimes shoving us
Think about when you’re driving
And you drift a little into the next lane, not really paying attention
And something pulls you back
Your skin prickles unpleasantly
You sort of “come to”
You pull over into your own lane
And a car whizzes by within inches
Or seeing into the hearts of those you consider your enemies
School adversaries, your boss or co-workers, even political radicals
Have you had a moment when you suddenly saw them
In their vulnerability
Doing or saying something that you yourself have done?
Suddenly understanding their motives
No matter how much you disagree?
This is awareness—this is being awake, keeping watch
This is what Advent is for
We are waiting for the birth of our savior
And even though we know the end of the story
—Christmas and stars and sheep and the baby—
We can’t forget the process of getting there
Advent is about waiting and keeping watch
Mary’s still pregnant, remember
As are we—pregnant with possibility
Expecting the unexpected
Observing for a moment what we’ve done so far
and letting the things we might do next unfold gestate
this Advent season,
I invite you to keep watch each day
Take 10 minutes every day just to sit and watch
And be aware of who you are
And whose you are
Take 10 minutes every day
to ask yourself what you’re waiting for
take a step back
breathe in that crisp, cold air outside of your busy, close, dark life
look for patterns
look for God moving in your life and in the life of the world
Keep awake therefore Pay attention Wake up!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
sunday's sermon--Luke 21:5-19
As usual, please pardon the bizarre formatting. I can't be bothered to fix it.
* * *
“Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”
[lift sign: “THE END IS NIGH”]
did you hear that?
Earthquakes, famines, plagues, signs, portents?!
How is this apocalypse not now?
[begin pacing]
Haiti wasn’t that long ago, you know
And Chile, and HIV in Africa, and the Gulf Coast
And suicide rates for teens are going up
And our food is more chemicals and murky ethics than food…
And I’ve read the political blogs
Our kids are going to grow up to be
debt-saddled, sex-crazed, sheltered,
free-thinking, bigoted hoodlums
because of big government.
Or small government.
I can’t remember which.
“do not be terrified” he says—must be easy if you’re the Son of God
this apocalypse is clearly now, clearly now is the end, or soon!...
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Dear God in heaven [stop pacing]
I don’t want to worry y’all but I am Freaking. Out.
[calming breath] Ok. Moment of clarity.
Earthquakes, famines, wars, signs—when is this not the case?
Right. Maybe St. Douglas Adams was right [advance slide: “Don’t Panic”]
So, what’s the point of this, if it’s not to scare us?
Jesus actually says, “Do not be terrified.”
Maybe, like the scriptural appearances of angels
We’re told “don’t panic” because we already are panicking
We’ve already freaked ourselves out
assuming we know what’s gonna happen
[reverse slide: black]
this story Jesus tells
about disaster and war and politics and doom and gloom
this story has been told before.
many times.
Daniel of Daniel and the Lion’s Den told it
Malachi and Isaiah and other prophets told it
Jesus told it
Mark wrote it down and Luke borrowed it from him…
And it has pretty much the same words every time
This story is called Apocalyptic
Or, if you like $5 words, Eschatology
Eschatology is the study of the eschaton—the end—
and it’s not what you think [advance slide: “Don’t Panic”]
Apocalyptic is not what you think
It’s not telling the future in a Nostradamus kind of way
And it’s not a puzzle for us to try to figure out
Partly because that’s never worked
Partly because it cannot work
People for centuries have confidently claimed
the last days were upon us
people for centuries have pulled numbers and notations
from the text
and figured out the code that tells us the date of the end
but that’s not the point [reverse slide: black]
Jesus himself in the text says
“the end will not follow immediately”
Violent events “do not signal that the end is near”
“all attempts to figure out the texts…
make us master of the word rather than vice versa”
plus, Jesus says we’ll never know the hour or the day
And apocalyptic is not meant to scare you.
Well, it’s meant to scare you a little, but we’ll get to that.
Apocalyptic means “a drawing back of the curtain”
It’s a revealing of another truth
Apocalyptic literature is, at its base, a literature of hope
To the Jewish people who are ground under the heel of Rome
To a people who,
have been waiting for God to fulfill
the Great Promise for centuries
To a people who feel completely helpless
Apocalyptic is a story of deliverance, of justice, of hope
What this story of earthquakes and famines
—and the rest of it that we didn’t read—
is about is the oppressed being freed
and the oppressors being brought to justice
and, more importantly, about who’s really in charge
apocalyptic literature said to the Jews [advance slide “Don’t panic”]
“hang in there, don’t freak out
it stinks right now and it’ll probably continue to stink for awhile
but they’re not in charge
I AM
Be faithful” [reverse slide: black]
But what does it say to us now?
Here in America, most of us in this room are not the oppressed
We are the middle class,
the mostly educated, civic-minded,
and yes, upstanding Lutheran folk
Certainly we have our struggles—
the wealthy are not exempt from misery and sin
by any means
but we are not the garbage-pickers of Brazil
we are not the despairing gay kids who commit suicide
we are not the mothers trying
to nurse their cholera-ridden children to health in Haiti
we are not the housekeeper
struggling to survive on $140/week
or are we? [advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
this apocalyptic literature has been misinterpreted for so long,
it’s hard to say what it means to us now [reverse slide: black]
but I wonder if it’s saying that it’s not about Us and Them?
It is not about We, the righteous of Good Shepherd,
being embraced and redeemed
while They—the sinful, oppressive
…Episcopalians? Athiests? Muslims? Whatever…
are judged and burned, much to our satisfaction
Lutherans know better than that
We are, in Luther’s words, simul Justus et peccator,
both saint and sinner
We are all both us and them.
We are all oppressed. And we are all oppressors.
We are all beloved. And we will all be judged.
But we don’t know when and we don’t know how
Roberta Bondi, one of my favorite devotional authors, says
“…if you think you know when it’s coming,
the very fact you think so is proof that you don’t.”
so, what are we supposed to do with this lesson?
[advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
it seems to be saying both, “don’t panic” and “the end is nigh”
and so it is
we need an apocalypse
for the parts of our lives where we are beaten down
where we are self-hating or bruised by the world
we need a revealing of God’s love
we need an apocalypse of hope
we need an apocalypse
for the parts of our lives where we are complacent
in our current good works,
in our easy political fixes for complex problems,
in our justification of what we have
we need an apocalypse of justice
we need an apocalypse
we need a pulling back of the curtain to reveal Truth
because it means a chance to remain faithful [reverse slide: black]
because here’s where it’s supposed to be a little scary
God is not saying “time to panic” but “time to participate”
This is what we promise in our baptism
That we will commit to the Word of God
That we will work for the revealing
of God’s peace, hope, justice, and love
That we will be faithful to our brothers and sisters
no matter what it costs us
One commentator on this passage writes:
“Those who wish to find a more vibrant religious experience, should look not for signs of the future but for signals that it is time to live by Jesus’ call for obedience here and now.”
So _____ and _____ who are baptized today, this is my prayer for you:
“… let your responses to the hype and horror of accumulating disasters not be determined by the one-liners of media editors or religious demagogues, but by the same Spirit who is now the centre of your life.”
babies cry when they’re being baptized
and, once, when my friend Bonnie was being baptized
she cried, too
because this Christian life is hard and scary
every baptism is an apocalypse
every baptism is revealing of a deeper truth
every baptism reminds us of God’s call to faithfulness
and of God’s infinite faithfulness to us
you should cry
and you should shout with laughter [advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
because God is moving,
doing a new thing, says the prophet Isaiah,
“God is doing a new thing, now it springs forth,
do you not perceive it?”
Do you not want to be a part of it?
It’s big and scary and exciting and it’s change and it’s nigh.
Don’t panic, be faithful instead.
Don’t panic, God’s in charge.
Don’t panic, participate.
[advance slide: black]
[end of sermon slides]
* * *
“Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”
[lift sign: “THE END IS NIGH”]
did you hear that?
Earthquakes, famines, plagues, signs, portents?!
How is this apocalypse not now?
[begin pacing]
Haiti wasn’t that long ago, you know
And Chile, and HIV in Africa, and the Gulf Coast
And suicide rates for teens are going up
And our food is more chemicals and murky ethics than food…
And I’ve read the political blogs
Our kids are going to grow up to be
debt-saddled, sex-crazed, sheltered,
free-thinking, bigoted hoodlums
because of big government.
Or small government.
I can’t remember which.
“do not be terrified” he says—must be easy if you’re the Son of God
this apocalypse is clearly now, clearly now is the end, or soon!...
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Dear God in heaven [stop pacing]
I don’t want to worry y’all but I am Freaking. Out.
[calming breath] Ok. Moment of clarity.
Earthquakes, famines, wars, signs—when is this not the case?
Right. Maybe St. Douglas Adams was right [advance slide: “Don’t Panic”]
So, what’s the point of this, if it’s not to scare us?
Jesus actually says, “Do not be terrified.”
Maybe, like the scriptural appearances of angels
We’re told “don’t panic” because we already are panicking
We’ve already freaked ourselves out
assuming we know what’s gonna happen
[reverse slide: black]
this story Jesus tells
about disaster and war and politics and doom and gloom
this story has been told before.
many times.
Daniel of Daniel and the Lion’s Den told it
Malachi and Isaiah and other prophets told it
Jesus told it
Mark wrote it down and Luke borrowed it from him…
And it has pretty much the same words every time
This story is called Apocalyptic
Or, if you like $5 words, Eschatology
Eschatology is the study of the eschaton—the end—
and it’s not what you think [advance slide: “Don’t Panic”]
Apocalyptic is not what you think
It’s not telling the future in a Nostradamus kind of way
And it’s not a puzzle for us to try to figure out
Partly because that’s never worked
Partly because it cannot work
People for centuries have confidently claimed
the last days were upon us
people for centuries have pulled numbers and notations
from the text
and figured out the code that tells us the date of the end
but that’s not the point [reverse slide: black]
Jesus himself in the text says
“the end will not follow immediately”
Violent events “do not signal that the end is near”
“all attempts to figure out the texts…
make us master of the word rather than vice versa”
plus, Jesus says we’ll never know the hour or the day
And apocalyptic is not meant to scare you.
Well, it’s meant to scare you a little, but we’ll get to that.
Apocalyptic means “a drawing back of the curtain”
It’s a revealing of another truth
Apocalyptic literature is, at its base, a literature of hope
To the Jewish people who are ground under the heel of Rome
To a people who,
have been waiting for God to fulfill
the Great Promise for centuries
To a people who feel completely helpless
Apocalyptic is a story of deliverance, of justice, of hope
What this story of earthquakes and famines
—and the rest of it that we didn’t read—
is about is the oppressed being freed
and the oppressors being brought to justice
and, more importantly, about who’s really in charge
apocalyptic literature said to the Jews [advance slide “Don’t panic”]
“hang in there, don’t freak out
it stinks right now and it’ll probably continue to stink for awhile
but they’re not in charge
I AM
Be faithful” [reverse slide: black]
But what does it say to us now?
Here in America, most of us in this room are not the oppressed
We are the middle class,
the mostly educated, civic-minded,
and yes, upstanding Lutheran folk
Certainly we have our struggles—
the wealthy are not exempt from misery and sin
by any means
but we are not the garbage-pickers of Brazil
we are not the despairing gay kids who commit suicide
we are not the mothers trying
to nurse their cholera-ridden children to health in Haiti
we are not the housekeeper
struggling to survive on $140/week
or are we? [advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
this apocalyptic literature has been misinterpreted for so long,
it’s hard to say what it means to us now [reverse slide: black]
but I wonder if it’s saying that it’s not about Us and Them?
It is not about We, the righteous of Good Shepherd,
being embraced and redeemed
while They—the sinful, oppressive
…Episcopalians? Athiests? Muslims? Whatever…
are judged and burned, much to our satisfaction
Lutherans know better than that
We are, in Luther’s words, simul Justus et peccator,
both saint and sinner
We are all both us and them.
We are all oppressed. And we are all oppressors.
We are all beloved. And we will all be judged.
But we don’t know when and we don’t know how
Roberta Bondi, one of my favorite devotional authors, says
“…if you think you know when it’s coming,
the very fact you think so is proof that you don’t.”
so, what are we supposed to do with this lesson?
[advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
it seems to be saying both, “don’t panic” and “the end is nigh”
and so it is
we need an apocalypse
for the parts of our lives where we are beaten down
where we are self-hating or bruised by the world
we need a revealing of God’s love
we need an apocalypse of hope
we need an apocalypse
for the parts of our lives where we are complacent
in our current good works,
in our easy political fixes for complex problems,
in our justification of what we have
we need an apocalypse of justice
we need an apocalypse
we need a pulling back of the curtain to reveal Truth
because it means a chance to remain faithful [reverse slide: black]
because here’s where it’s supposed to be a little scary
God is not saying “time to panic” but “time to participate”
This is what we promise in our baptism
That we will commit to the Word of God
That we will work for the revealing
of God’s peace, hope, justice, and love
That we will be faithful to our brothers and sisters
no matter what it costs us
One commentator on this passage writes:
“Those who wish to find a more vibrant religious experience, should look not for signs of the future but for signals that it is time to live by Jesus’ call for obedience here and now.”
So _____ and _____ who are baptized today, this is my prayer for you:
“… let your responses to the hype and horror of accumulating disasters not be determined by the one-liners of media editors or religious demagogues, but by the same Spirit who is now the centre of your life.”
babies cry when they’re being baptized
and, once, when my friend Bonnie was being baptized
she cried, too
because this Christian life is hard and scary
every baptism is an apocalypse
every baptism is revealing of a deeper truth
every baptism reminds us of God’s call to faithfulness
and of God’s infinite faithfulness to us
you should cry
and you should shout with laughter [advance slide: “Don’t panic”]
because God is moving,
doing a new thing, says the prophet Isaiah,
“God is doing a new thing, now it springs forth,
do you not perceive it?”
Do you not want to be a part of it?
It’s big and scary and exciting and it’s change and it’s nigh.
Don’t panic, be faithful instead.
Don’t panic, God’s in charge.
Don’t panic, participate.
[advance slide: black]
[end of sermon slides]
Saturday, August 07, 2010
the fear factor
I am freaking out.
My list of administrative and planning tasks for the campus ministry at the Edge House is about half-done and, though there's a bunch left, I was feeling pretty good about it. Pretty accomplished. Then I started catching up on Benson Hines' web log on campus ministry and I'm freaking out.
First there's a post about cool and formative ideas for a retreat, then one about how important the first month of classes is, especially for freshmen. It's really great information--ideas that I can use to deepen my presence on campus and relationships with my returning students. There are 23 more posts to read and I just can't.
It doesn't seem to matter that my Campus Ministry Team and I have decided to target specific populations on campus rather than the whole place. It doesn't seem to matter that I've been reading the book of Ecclesiastes which has inspired me to be more relaxed. It doesn't seem to matter that last year was more wildly successful than I'd hoped and that I've got some fabulous plans for this year. It doesn't seem to matter that my returning students are brilliant, amazing people who all want to get more involved in the ministry and bring more people into the fold.
All I can think right now is that there is just too much possible. Too many students to reach, too many issues to address, too many competitors to the Word we're offering, too many ways it could all go wrong.
This is the place in the web blog post where I should share how I've turned away from this fear. This is the place where I offer hope to the rest of you who feel the same about campus ministry or whatever it is you're passionate about. Right now, I can't. Oh, I know it's there, but I can't really see it.
My list of administrative and planning tasks for the campus ministry at the Edge House is about half-done and, though there's a bunch left, I was feeling pretty good about it. Pretty accomplished. Then I started catching up on Benson Hines' web log on campus ministry and I'm freaking out.
First there's a post about cool and formative ideas for a retreat, then one about how important the first month of classes is, especially for freshmen. It's really great information--ideas that I can use to deepen my presence on campus and relationships with my returning students. There are 23 more posts to read and I just can't.
It doesn't seem to matter that my Campus Ministry Team and I have decided to target specific populations on campus rather than the whole place. It doesn't seem to matter that I've been reading the book of Ecclesiastes which has inspired me to be more relaxed. It doesn't seem to matter that last year was more wildly successful than I'd hoped and that I've got some fabulous plans for this year. It doesn't seem to matter that my returning students are brilliant, amazing people who all want to get more involved in the ministry and bring more people into the fold.
All I can think right now is that there is just too much possible. Too many students to reach, too many issues to address, too many competitors to the Word we're offering, too many ways it could all go wrong.
This is the place in the web blog post where I should share how I've turned away from this fear. This is the place where I offer hope to the rest of you who feel the same about campus ministry or whatever it is you're passionate about. Right now, I can't. Oh, I know it's there, but I can't really see it.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
this week's sermon--Ecclesiastes 1:2,12-14;2:18-23
There is nothing new under the sun. Can I get an “amen”? [sigh] There is nothing new under the sun.
I’m going to be honest with you all, I don’t know what to do about B. B’s a homeless guy who hangs out on the porch at the Edge campus ministry house where I work. He sits on a chair, watches folks pass by, tells us the same story ten times in as many minutes, eats a sandwich when we offer it—he’s clearly unbalanced, but he always seemed harmless. But he’s been sleeping on the porch, too, sleeping off a drunk. And he’s been leaving garbage. And peeing on the porch. And just two days ago, he kicked one of my ministry partners when she told him he needed to leave. According to the public defender’s office, he’s the current record-holder for arrests in Hamilton County with more than 470 and has more than three warrants out right now. And he’s a violent, mean drunk who has walked away from or been kicked out of every social service agency in town.
So, what to do, eh? As a person of faith, what do I do? He can’t sleep and pee on the porch, that much is clear. And I can’t have someone who could turn violent in a moment around my students—that’s not fair to anyone. So, we have set up a no trespassing order and, after the kicking incident, have filled out an arrest warrant—so we’re one of the three. The behavior cannot go on—and I think Jesus would be with us on that, at least. Jesus was no doormat and offered challenges to those he met both in word and action. But what’s the hospitality side of this? How can we actually help B in any meaningful way? Can we, even? I don’t know. I don’t know.
And this might lead some folk to despair. Some of ya’ll might be thinking “all is vanity and a chasing after wind”. Maybe. “There is nothing new under the sun” you might be thinking, and you’d be right. We’re not the only ones to deal with friends or relatives who have mental illness or alcoholism or even poor table manners. We’re not the first people to feel overwhelmed by poverty or to struggle with evangelism. On the deeply spiritual TV show Battlestar Galactica, a line which gets repeated often is “All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.” No seriously, it’s a great show.
Y’all might know Ecclesiastes better by another passage: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…” That’s chapter three, almost directly after this reading we heard from ______________.
Ecclesiastes might have been a crotchety old man or maybe he was just a realist. Either way, his book is filled with a kind of heaviness. He seeks after and finds wisdom, yet it does not last and only shows him the futility of human endeavors. He seeks after pleasure, yet it does not last and dies with the person. He builds and plants and creates and, though he enjoys the building and planting and creating themselves, the results do not last but crumble and cannot be taken past the grave. “All is vanity and a chasing after wind.” And who among us has not had a similar experience? At the very least, many of us have watched toddlers play. Or, rather, destroy. Typical of preachers, I’m talking about my own family—my daughter Abby is a year and a half and she loves building towers. Or my building towers for her. She loves admiring them for a moment, then destroying them like Godzilla. And I could take the depressing route and say, “Why should I toil in vain and build towers that my daughter knocks down? It is vanity and a chasing after wind” No, I build it again, because I see her delight. Maybe you know more viscerally that experience of “chasing after wind”—maybe you have built a business only to see it fail or to succeed better for another owner, maybe you poured your heart and soul into someone beloved who was suffering only to see her die.
Many folks think Ecclesiastes is depressing, but some of us find it comforting. Perhaps it’s the Lutherans I work with rubbing off on me, but it suggests to me that it’s not our works—good or evil—that save us. God does that. What we do or create is important, but that ultimately, it’s all in God’s hands. That I don’t have responsibility for making everything turn out okay. Phew.
I wonder if we have a hard time with evangelism because maybe we think the story ends with “this is vanity” rather than how it actually ends. The assigned lesson for today ends with “all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” Did you find yourself wondering what you’re supposed to do with that? A bit like my quandary about B, you had something complicated and heavy dropped on you and now what? I’m not sure why this is, but the compilers of the lectionary often cut off the reading before it is ripe. Remember that more famous bit of Ecclesiastes that I mentioned comes almost directly after our reading? Yeah, Here’s part of what we missed:
“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” This changes everything.
I think we sometimes dislike Ecclesiastes because he is us. He writes what we all think—that we have a hope, but it’s pretty tissue thin and what does what we do amount to anyway? Particularly when it comes to spirituality? We think, if we shared our stories with friends, neighbors, strangers, no one would listen to us, and even if they did, what would we say in the first place? It’s pointless and a chasing after wind. We think we have to have all the answers—about how salvation works, about who’s in and who’s out, about the church’s problematic history, about the Trinity or the two natures of Christ or whatever—but we don’t. That’s not the story! That’s not the good news that God offered in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We only need to be honest with one another about our lives and our experiences of God. This, brothers and sisters, is evangelism. It’s sharing part of your story with someone else, it’s building relationships with folks you meet, from friends to aggressive homeless guys who pee on your porch. It’s certainly not easy, and I don’t yet know how to build relationship with B. It’s not easy, but it is freeing.
The good news is that we don’t have to shoulder the responsibility of fixing everything. The good news is that eating, drinking, and enjoying our toil—whether it’s our paying job, whether it’s putting storm windows on someone’s house, whether it’s writing a song or running a marathon, or being rejected in our attempts to connect—the good news is there is nothing better for us than to try and all of it comes from God.
The good news is “there is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil” because as brother Paul of Tarsus wrote, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Hallelujah.
I’m going to be honest with you all, I don’t know what to do about B. B’s a homeless guy who hangs out on the porch at the Edge campus ministry house where I work. He sits on a chair, watches folks pass by, tells us the same story ten times in as many minutes, eats a sandwich when we offer it—he’s clearly unbalanced, but he always seemed harmless. But he’s been sleeping on the porch, too, sleeping off a drunk. And he’s been leaving garbage. And peeing on the porch. And just two days ago, he kicked one of my ministry partners when she told him he needed to leave. According to the public defender’s office, he’s the current record-holder for arrests in Hamilton County with more than 470 and has more than three warrants out right now. And he’s a violent, mean drunk who has walked away from or been kicked out of every social service agency in town.
So, what to do, eh? As a person of faith, what do I do? He can’t sleep and pee on the porch, that much is clear. And I can’t have someone who could turn violent in a moment around my students—that’s not fair to anyone. So, we have set up a no trespassing order and, after the kicking incident, have filled out an arrest warrant—so we’re one of the three. The behavior cannot go on—and I think Jesus would be with us on that, at least. Jesus was no doormat and offered challenges to those he met both in word and action. But what’s the hospitality side of this? How can we actually help B in any meaningful way? Can we, even? I don’t know. I don’t know.
And this might lead some folk to despair. Some of ya’ll might be thinking “all is vanity and a chasing after wind”. Maybe. “There is nothing new under the sun” you might be thinking, and you’d be right. We’re not the only ones to deal with friends or relatives who have mental illness or alcoholism or even poor table manners. We’re not the first people to feel overwhelmed by poverty or to struggle with evangelism. On the deeply spiritual TV show Battlestar Galactica, a line which gets repeated often is “All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.” No seriously, it’s a great show.
Y’all might know Ecclesiastes better by another passage: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted…” That’s chapter three, almost directly after this reading we heard from ______________.
Ecclesiastes might have been a crotchety old man or maybe he was just a realist. Either way, his book is filled with a kind of heaviness. He seeks after and finds wisdom, yet it does not last and only shows him the futility of human endeavors. He seeks after pleasure, yet it does not last and dies with the person. He builds and plants and creates and, though he enjoys the building and planting and creating themselves, the results do not last but crumble and cannot be taken past the grave. “All is vanity and a chasing after wind.” And who among us has not had a similar experience? At the very least, many of us have watched toddlers play. Or, rather, destroy. Typical of preachers, I’m talking about my own family—my daughter Abby is a year and a half and she loves building towers. Or my building towers for her. She loves admiring them for a moment, then destroying them like Godzilla. And I could take the depressing route and say, “Why should I toil in vain and build towers that my daughter knocks down? It is vanity and a chasing after wind” No, I build it again, because I see her delight. Maybe you know more viscerally that experience of “chasing after wind”—maybe you have built a business only to see it fail or to succeed better for another owner, maybe you poured your heart and soul into someone beloved who was suffering only to see her die.
Many folks think Ecclesiastes is depressing, but some of us find it comforting. Perhaps it’s the Lutherans I work with rubbing off on me, but it suggests to me that it’s not our works—good or evil—that save us. God does that. What we do or create is important, but that ultimately, it’s all in God’s hands. That I don’t have responsibility for making everything turn out okay. Phew.
I wonder if we have a hard time with evangelism because maybe we think the story ends with “this is vanity” rather than how it actually ends. The assigned lesson for today ends with “all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” Did you find yourself wondering what you’re supposed to do with that? A bit like my quandary about B, you had something complicated and heavy dropped on you and now what? I’m not sure why this is, but the compilers of the lectionary often cut off the reading before it is ripe. Remember that more famous bit of Ecclesiastes that I mentioned comes almost directly after our reading? Yeah, Here’s part of what we missed:
“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him, who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” This changes everything.
I think we sometimes dislike Ecclesiastes because he is us. He writes what we all think—that we have a hope, but it’s pretty tissue thin and what does what we do amount to anyway? Particularly when it comes to spirituality? We think, if we shared our stories with friends, neighbors, strangers, no one would listen to us, and even if they did, what would we say in the first place? It’s pointless and a chasing after wind. We think we have to have all the answers—about how salvation works, about who’s in and who’s out, about the church’s problematic history, about the Trinity or the two natures of Christ or whatever—but we don’t. That’s not the story! That’s not the good news that God offered in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We only need to be honest with one another about our lives and our experiences of God. This, brothers and sisters, is evangelism. It’s sharing part of your story with someone else, it’s building relationships with folks you meet, from friends to aggressive homeless guys who pee on your porch. It’s certainly not easy, and I don’t yet know how to build relationship with B. It’s not easy, but it is freeing.
The good news is that we don’t have to shoulder the responsibility of fixing everything. The good news is that eating, drinking, and enjoying our toil—whether it’s our paying job, whether it’s putting storm windows on someone’s house, whether it’s writing a song or running a marathon, or being rejected in our attempts to connect—the good news is there is nothing better for us than to try and all of it comes from God.
The good news is “there is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil” because as brother Paul of Tarsus wrote, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Hallelujah.
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